By Doreen Hammond
FOR being at the wrong place at the wrong time, Ken has had to spend nine years and six months of his life in jail for a robbery he claims he knows nothing about to date. According to Ken, he was with some friends in a house at Mamprobi in Accra when the Police rounded them up in a swoop and sent them to the Mamprobi Police Station.
Then in Senior Secondary School Form two, Ken’s nightmare was just about to begin as he was moved to the Nima Police Station Cells, then to the CID headquarters before he finally found himself as a remand prisoner at the Nsawam Prisons.
With no money to get good legal counsel, Ken had to remain on remand without trial for those nine years and six months.
As he spoke to the Daily Graphic about his bitterness and ordeal, Ken intermittently had to pause as he came close to tears.
Call it fate, call it destiny, Ken came out of prison a year ago by the kind courtesy of the justice for all programme which looked into his case and found that he could not be held that long without trial and therefore the necessary procedures were put in place which got him his freedom.
But that was not to be the end of his predicament. He was released from prison with nothing to find his feet in society except his strong feeling to seek revenge which he thought would be to burn the house in which he was arrested on that day.
His family have not been supportive, “ they still do not feel comfortable with me around and I find that very sad”.
This is part of the story of a convict who claims innocence but has had to suffer for a crime he did not commit.
At the Royal House Chapel in Accra where I found Ken was another convict, Ameyaw, who on the contrary, admits to committing series of robberies , found himself in a shoot out with the Police, was shot in the leg and ended up in prison.
Ameyaw speaks of how he dropped out of primary school at age 10. He recounts how some friends he made eventually turned him into a big time armed robber.
Because he was small when he joined the gang, he was passed through holes made to house the old type of air conditioners to gain access into homes for robbery.
With time, Ameyaw left home because “ I was seeing a lot of money, more than my parents could ever give me” ,he recalls.
At 16, he rented his own apartment and was steeped deep in robbery. To fortify himself, Ameyaw said he and his gang visited Mallams in the Volta Region, Paga and La Cote D’ivoire where they were given various charms, some in the form of powder which put their victims to sleep until they had finished their operation and left. Other charms took away from them the human feeling of pity. They had no sympathy for their victims.
He said they also had boxer shorts that made them disappear or gave those who tried to pursue them a wrong impression as to where they were actually heading.
According to Ameyaw, their informants were househelps and private security guards in people’s homes.
This kind of criminal life was however to end for him when he and his two other gang members went in search of money for an Easter which was approaching.
When they entered the house they were to rob, they found a middle-aged woman sitting alone in the living room reading her Bible deep in the night.
They tied her up, put her in a bath tub in the house and opened the hot water tap over her after they had taken whatever they wanted from the house and left.
According to Ameyaw, the sight of the Bible had given him the feeling that something terrible would happen to them, but his friends urged him to go on. If only he had obeyed his first impulse, he could have escaped what was about to face him and change his life again forever.
They had not gone too far when the police caught up with them and when they felt uncomfortable with the questions they were being asked, they sped off as they shot at the police. The police gave them a chase, shot his two friends dead but he survived with a shot to his leg.
After spending seven years in prison, Ameyaw is out and says he is treated like “a mad dog any time I near home”. Like Ken, the prison authorities released him with nothing to support himself except his transport fare.
Ken and Ameyaw are among the 14 graduates of the Royal House Chapel’s Restoration School this year. The good news is that Ken is back in school getting ready to sit the WASSCE and Ameyaw has been employed by the church.
The school was set up two years ago by Rev. Sam Korankye Ankrah, General Overseer of the church two years ago with the intention of restoring social deviants such as ex-convicts, prostitutes, alcoholics and drug addicts back to their normal selves.
In an Interview with Rev. Mrs Rita Korankye Ankrah, the wife of Rev. Ankrah who administers the school, she explained that the school’s curriculum included teaching on forgiveness, how to handle depression, dealing with fear and anger and faithfulness.
She said the programme had been designed to help equip such otherwise social misfits who become their students for reintegration into the society. The students are also provided with role models to mentor them and are given full scholarship to study whatever they wish.
Mrs Korankye Ankrah said the students were also given some stipend to live on for work they did around the church, were fed and given clothing by the church.
This, the church is able to do from money it receives through tithes and collection from the members of the church.
She said the idea to start the school was conceived by her husband when he celebrated his 50th birthday with inmates of the Nsawam prisons where he interacted with and fed over 3,000 inmates . When?
“He then asked himself what next after the visit, and what next after prison life and that was when the idea of the school of restoration came to him” Mrs Korankye Ankrah said.
Ken and Ameyaw talk of the hardship of prison life with no proper sleeping places, bad food and insanitary conditions. They said they did not go through any programme that prepared them for life outside prison and were therefore quick to join the school when they heard about it. To them, the Royal House Chapel is a safe haven.
The question that therefore comes to mind is whether our prisons are reforming its inmates and after serving time, what awaits the ex-convict?
In his article on the challenges prisoners face after their release, Mr Abundant Robert Awolugutu, Assistant Director of the Kumasi Central Prisons recognises the shortcomings of the country’s Prison Service in this direction and attributes it to lack of adequate funding.
He mentions homelessness, joblessness and relationship factors as a result of being behind bars as some of the challenges faced by the prisoner who is released/ex-convict.
As a result of financial challenges, he said the Ghana Prisons Service provided only transport fares of released prisoners from the prison to the place of conviction of the prisoner.
He is concerned that “when a prisoner arrives at his destination and is without money, how does he get food, water and possibly accommodation without resorting to crime to make up?”
This state of affairs is definitely not the best for society because it leaves the ex-convict vulnerable. The probability of a return to crime for survival becomes real and it is society that ultimately pays the price.
The Royal House Chapel’s effort is commendable but how many of such convicts in this country can it cater for?
The situation calls for a governmental effort to support ex-convicts in the form of a budgetary allocation to set them up on a clean path after serving time.
Meanwhile, the Royal House Chapel has formally set the pace, how many of our churches would follow?
The church must not only be interested in preaching the word for preaching to a hungry and needy soul because it would be like sowing the word among thorns.
More churches and institutions should start similar programmes so that society would go to sleep at night and have a good sleep.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
A dirge for our cinema industry?
By Doreen Hammond
For a certain generation of Ghanaians, names of popular movie actors like Bruce Lee, Christopher Lee, who played Dracula and the images of Charlie Chaplain would remain in their minds perhaps forever, thanks to the cinema houses of old.
In those days, there was Opera in Accra Central, better known to the youth of the 1980s as ‘twe’ because it showed certain films at 12 noon. Many students got into trouble with ‘twe’ because they ran away from school to watch films such as Shaolin Master and Snake in the monkey’s shadow , in which Chinese karate fighters showed their skills as they flew high up in the sky and landed blows and kicks on their opponents on rooftops and horses.
Yet, it was difficult to understand the reason for the fights. It could range from revenge for pouring away tea meant for a great grandfather over 50 years ago to a fight supposed to maintain “the family honour”.
The whole country was littered with cinema houses. There were cinema houses such as Olympia at La, Roxy and Globe at Adabraka, Plaza at Mamprobi, Rex and Palladium in Accra, Oxford, Orion at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Dunia and Gaskia at Nima and Casino at Tema.
In the regions there were Mikado at Nsawam, Royal and Odium in Kumasi, Rex in Sunyani and Capitol in Koforidua, Tamale, Takoradi, Cape Coast, etc. These regional cinema houses, in addition to Palladium and Parks in Accra, were owned by a Ghanaian businessman, John Kabu Ocansey, who introduced cinema into Ghana in 1925.
Films were mainly imported and showed at these cinemas.
In those days, going to the cinema was exciting. Queuing to buy the ticket and buying popcorn, chewing gum and other sweets was a great experience. Then when the lights were switched off, the audience would first have to watch some few minutes of government propaganda documentaries and trailers before the real thing.
Little wonder, going to the cinema was part of wooing and a reward for children who had been of good behaviour.
Then came the video surge in the late 1980s, resulting in a decline in cinema attendance. With video tapes such as VHS and later JVC — some of which looked as big as boxes — video operators just needed to cover structures with blankets and cloth to prevent those who had not paid the fee from peeping. On benches, people paid a cheaper amount than they would pay for the big cinemas to watch films.
But there were more established video centres such as Video City at Lartebiokoshie. By the 1990s the hiring of video tapes had become brisk and profitable business as more people bought their own video decks but could not afford to buy more tapes.
With technological improvement in the shape and size of videos and their affordability, cinema attendance saw a complete dip as many Ghanaians stayed indoors to watch home videos. The introduction of compact discs (CDs) have further compounded the problem. There are a few private movie houses now but the two that come close to the big cinemas we used to have are GAMA Films and Silverbird at the Accra Shopping Mall. These are not open air, as the public cinemas used to be, though.
Today, many of those big cinemas stand as memory for what used to be a booming industry that provided employment to scores of people. Opera now houses a warehouse, a bank and small shops. The only thing that can be associated with cinema around the building now is the sale of CDs by some individuals at its entrance, which is now a bus terminal.
Most of the other cinemas are now venues for church services.
From the look of things, cinema, the way we used to know it back in the days, is dead. The question is: Should we bury it?
I put this question to Prof. Linus Abraham, the Rector of the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI), who thinks cinema should not be buried but resurrected. He sees the need for rehabilitation and revival of the cinema spirit.
Prof. Abraham believed that even though cinema attendance had dipped the world over, “nothing can replace the cinema experience and there is nothing like letting go”.
“Nothing can match the experience in the cinema house, the environment, etc,” he emphasised.
He said cinemas played a critical role in development as outlets for distribution and exhibition and created opportunities for film producers to improve themselves and reach larger audiences.
He gave the example of how the renowned film maker, Kwaw Ansah, first premieres his films at the theatre before making them available on CDs for sale.
The rector said cinemas had to be revived and that the government could be a source of help in raising funds, since the revival would be capital intensive, before they were privatised.
He thought there should be at least regional cinemas to provide the entertainment they used to.
Prof. Abraham encouraged private entrepreneurs to invest in the cinema, since it was still a very viable business.
Ghanaians still appreciated good films, as Kwaw Ansah’s films at the National Theatre had always shown, he said.
On the contrary, Nanabanyin Dadson, an arts writer and Editor of Graphic Showbiz, thinks that cinema, as we knew it, is dead and can never make a comeback.
He answered the question from two perspectives, change in attitude and technology.
He said Ghana had never been a strong cinema country like its neighbour Burkina Faso and was never able to establish a strong cinema tradition.
According to him, the production of films did not start in Ghana till the British introduced it in 1940 and that era saw the terminology “Aban Cine”, meaning Government Cinema, because films were used by the Information Services for propaganda .
He recalled films such as ‘Theresa’ on health and ‘Mr Mensah Builds a house’ which sought to promote savings.
Nanabanyin maintained that technology had come with easier and cheaper ways of acquiring, showing and watching films.
“We are able to entertain ourselves without going to the cinema,” he explained.
“With home theatres, which you can watch in more comfort with even a towel around your waist, who would want to dress up and head for the cinema? Videos and CDs killed the temporary upsurge in the cinema because we are mainly consumers,” he explained.
Nanabanyin believes that the film industry should go ahead with home videos in mind because the days of cinema are gone forever.
To get an idea about how the major cinema in Accra, Silverbird, is doing, I spoke to Mr Kweku Yankson, the Marketing Manager, who said Silverbird was doing great business and that all its halls which could seat 1,500 and showed four times in a day were often filled at the weekends.
He said cinema was still very relevant today for entertainment and business.
The government also seems to have concerns over our dead cinemas. The Minister of Information, Mr Fritz Baffour, said in a chat that the government knew the importance of promoting cinema in the country and was engaged in some talks with GAMA Films to see how best to revive cinemas.
I still crave for the day when I, in the company of friends, would visit one of these cinema houses as we used to do in the days of old. The cinema complemented our night life as a people and its demise will make us poorer as a fun loving people.
Over to you, Government and all stakeholders.
• Writer’s e-mail:
aamakai@hotmail.com
For a certain generation of Ghanaians, names of popular movie actors like Bruce Lee, Christopher Lee, who played Dracula and the images of Charlie Chaplain would remain in their minds perhaps forever, thanks to the cinema houses of old.
In those days, there was Opera in Accra Central, better known to the youth of the 1980s as ‘twe’ because it showed certain films at 12 noon. Many students got into trouble with ‘twe’ because they ran away from school to watch films such as Shaolin Master and Snake in the monkey’s shadow , in which Chinese karate fighters showed their skills as they flew high up in the sky and landed blows and kicks on their opponents on rooftops and horses.
Yet, it was difficult to understand the reason for the fights. It could range from revenge for pouring away tea meant for a great grandfather over 50 years ago to a fight supposed to maintain “the family honour”.
The whole country was littered with cinema houses. There were cinema houses such as Olympia at La, Roxy and Globe at Adabraka, Plaza at Mamprobi, Rex and Palladium in Accra, Oxford, Orion at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Dunia and Gaskia at Nima and Casino at Tema.
In the regions there were Mikado at Nsawam, Royal and Odium in Kumasi, Rex in Sunyani and Capitol in Koforidua, Tamale, Takoradi, Cape Coast, etc. These regional cinema houses, in addition to Palladium and Parks in Accra, were owned by a Ghanaian businessman, John Kabu Ocansey, who introduced cinema into Ghana in 1925.
Films were mainly imported and showed at these cinemas.
In those days, going to the cinema was exciting. Queuing to buy the ticket and buying popcorn, chewing gum and other sweets was a great experience. Then when the lights were switched off, the audience would first have to watch some few minutes of government propaganda documentaries and trailers before the real thing.
Little wonder, going to the cinema was part of wooing and a reward for children who had been of good behaviour.
Then came the video surge in the late 1980s, resulting in a decline in cinema attendance. With video tapes such as VHS and later JVC — some of which looked as big as boxes — video operators just needed to cover structures with blankets and cloth to prevent those who had not paid the fee from peeping. On benches, people paid a cheaper amount than they would pay for the big cinemas to watch films.
But there were more established video centres such as Video City at Lartebiokoshie. By the 1990s the hiring of video tapes had become brisk and profitable business as more people bought their own video decks but could not afford to buy more tapes.
With technological improvement in the shape and size of videos and their affordability, cinema attendance saw a complete dip as many Ghanaians stayed indoors to watch home videos. The introduction of compact discs (CDs) have further compounded the problem. There are a few private movie houses now but the two that come close to the big cinemas we used to have are GAMA Films and Silverbird at the Accra Shopping Mall. These are not open air, as the public cinemas used to be, though.
Today, many of those big cinemas stand as memory for what used to be a booming industry that provided employment to scores of people. Opera now houses a warehouse, a bank and small shops. The only thing that can be associated with cinema around the building now is the sale of CDs by some individuals at its entrance, which is now a bus terminal.
Most of the other cinemas are now venues for church services.
From the look of things, cinema, the way we used to know it back in the days, is dead. The question is: Should we bury it?
I put this question to Prof. Linus Abraham, the Rector of the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI), who thinks cinema should not be buried but resurrected. He sees the need for rehabilitation and revival of the cinema spirit.
Prof. Abraham believed that even though cinema attendance had dipped the world over, “nothing can replace the cinema experience and there is nothing like letting go”.
“Nothing can match the experience in the cinema house, the environment, etc,” he emphasised.
He said cinemas played a critical role in development as outlets for distribution and exhibition and created opportunities for film producers to improve themselves and reach larger audiences.
He gave the example of how the renowned film maker, Kwaw Ansah, first premieres his films at the theatre before making them available on CDs for sale.
The rector said cinemas had to be revived and that the government could be a source of help in raising funds, since the revival would be capital intensive, before they were privatised.
He thought there should be at least regional cinemas to provide the entertainment they used to.
Prof. Abraham encouraged private entrepreneurs to invest in the cinema, since it was still a very viable business.
Ghanaians still appreciated good films, as Kwaw Ansah’s films at the National Theatre had always shown, he said.
On the contrary, Nanabanyin Dadson, an arts writer and Editor of Graphic Showbiz, thinks that cinema, as we knew it, is dead and can never make a comeback.
He answered the question from two perspectives, change in attitude and technology.
He said Ghana had never been a strong cinema country like its neighbour Burkina Faso and was never able to establish a strong cinema tradition.
According to him, the production of films did not start in Ghana till the British introduced it in 1940 and that era saw the terminology “Aban Cine”, meaning Government Cinema, because films were used by the Information Services for propaganda .
He recalled films such as ‘Theresa’ on health and ‘Mr Mensah Builds a house’ which sought to promote savings.
Nanabanyin maintained that technology had come with easier and cheaper ways of acquiring, showing and watching films.
“We are able to entertain ourselves without going to the cinema,” he explained.
“With home theatres, which you can watch in more comfort with even a towel around your waist, who would want to dress up and head for the cinema? Videos and CDs killed the temporary upsurge in the cinema because we are mainly consumers,” he explained.
Nanabanyin believes that the film industry should go ahead with home videos in mind because the days of cinema are gone forever.
To get an idea about how the major cinema in Accra, Silverbird, is doing, I spoke to Mr Kweku Yankson, the Marketing Manager, who said Silverbird was doing great business and that all its halls which could seat 1,500 and showed four times in a day were often filled at the weekends.
He said cinema was still very relevant today for entertainment and business.
The government also seems to have concerns over our dead cinemas. The Minister of Information, Mr Fritz Baffour, said in a chat that the government knew the importance of promoting cinema in the country and was engaged in some talks with GAMA Films to see how best to revive cinemas.
I still crave for the day when I, in the company of friends, would visit one of these cinema houses as we used to do in the days of old. The cinema complemented our night life as a people and its demise will make us poorer as a fun loving people.
Over to you, Government and all stakeholders.
• Writer’s e-mail:
aamakai@hotmail.com
Friday, March 23, 2012
Privatise Korle Bu
THE Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), Ghana’s foremost referral hospital, is now a far cry from what is expected of such a facility, nearly 90 years after its establishment.
With an average attendance of about 1,500 patients at its Outpatient’s Department (OPD) and 150 admissions daily, the hospital has to struggle to adequately care for its patients.
To enhance the capacity of the hospital to deal with its challenges, the Chief Executive Officer, Professor Nii Otu Nartey, has advocated that the hospital be allowed to run more like a private institution in order to raise the necessary funds to make the hospital more efficient.
He said although the government paid the salaries of the members of staff, payment for services under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and payments made by patients for consumables were inadequate, causing the hospital to continuously run at a loss.
The Daily Graphic visited the hospital on Thursday to acquaint itself with the challenges and achievements of the health facility in the face of continuous public complaints over its services.
The facility is the third largest hospital in Africa and the leading referral centre in Ghana.
It has been grappling with obsolete equipment or the unavailability of it because the old ones have given way and but not been replaced. For instance, there have been periods when there were no operating theatre tables, ventilators, suction machines, monitors and anaesthetic machines.
In addition, reports have been made about the erratic supply of electricity and water. Inadequate staff numbers to do the job are also a problem.
At the Accident Centre, patients were seen being given infusion as they sat in chairs. Others were being treated at the area around the nurses’ table because there were no beds. The same situation was observed at the Surgical Medical Emergency Centre, where some patients had to lie on benches.
Clearly, the centre had seen no rehabilitation in a long while. The few beds there had no sheets and patients who came without any slept on mattresses. The washroom was a sorry sight and if we still went by the science books, then passing infection from one patient to another was possible.
In addition to all these, patients and the members of staff had to deal with heat at the centre.
Some relatives of patients on admission were seen sprawled on card boards outside the gates of the centre because they had to stay around to run errands such as getting prescribed medications for the patients they had brought.
The situation at these two centres was pathetic.
At the Laundry Department, things were not going the way they should because of the lack of certain equipment, making operations manual.
Madam Naomi Hammond, the Head of the department, told the Daily Graphic that the laundry had three washers and two dryers which were not functioning properly.
There were no flat work ironers, forcing workers to report to work as early as 5 a.m. to iron manually in order to meet the demands of the hospital, especially linen from the theatres which had to be sent for sterilisation at a particular time.
In order to function more efficiently, Madam Hammond said the department would need six tumble dryers, eight washers and other equipment, saying that the situation now was not the best, especially when it rained.
The Childrens’ Block, with beds meant for15 children, was catering for 60 children at the time of the visit because a number of them slept on one bed as a matter of necessity. The possibility of passing on infection in such situation was very high.
To address some of the challenges, Prof Nartey was of the view that if the hospital was run like a private one, doctors, nurses and other members of staff could be paid more and thereby reduce the incidence of brain drain.
According to him, that would make doctors and other members of staff more dedicated to their patients “because they will know that if they don’t, they will lose money”.
Although he admitted that health services were more for social good, making the charging of commercial rates difficult, “that is the way we would need to finally go, in addition to a change in attitude towards work”.
Prof Nartey said he had been walking a tight rope in managing the hospital for the past four years because “you rebuke a doctor for wrongdoing and the doctors gang up against you”.
That, he said, made it difficult to deal with issues and that had led to some of the challenges the hospital was currently facing.
He described the future of the hospital as “great”, saying it was making great strides with time and gave a recent case of kidney transplant and another scheduled for April as some of the strides.
The chief executive said somehow the hospital was neglected in the past when it came to the allocation of funds from the government because of an erroneous notion that Korle-Bu could take care of itself.
That, however, changed for the better from 2008, he said.
The Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, which opened on October 9, 1923, has grown from a 200-bed capacity facility to 2,000 now.
Presently, the hospital sees an average of 1,500 patients a day at its Outpatients Department (OPD), about 150 of who are admitted.
An increase in population, however, and the refusal of most patients to use it as a referral/specialist hospital, not a general one, has rendered it frequently crowded.
According to Prof Nartey, “the argument of most patients had been: ‘Why should I go to the polyclinic when I will be eventually referred to Korle-Bu? I will go there straight’. So they come with even malaria, which could be treated at the polyclinics”.
Often patients complain about long waiting time for consultation and other services.
To that complaint, Prof Nartey responded that the hospital had set up a complaints desk to address those issues but most patients would rather not want to be mentioned in connection with any complaint, making it difficult to follow up.
He added that patients would often arrive at the hospital as early as 5.30 a.m., irrespective of the fact that the clinic they were attending started at 9 a.m., and became very irritated when doctors had to go on ward rounds before attending to them.
He thought if an efficient appointment system was run, waiting time could be reduced but it seemed the Ghanaian believed more in the “first come, first served service”.
That gloomy picture of the Korle-Bu, however, is about to change because a number of projects have been completed and new ones begun.
According to Mr Mustapha Salifu, the Public Relations Officer of the hospital, the state of affairs at the Children’s Block was to change with the construction of a temporary emergency centre for children in the block.
The laundry is also to see a rehabilitation with the necessary equipment provided. All 13 lifts which were broken down, including those at the Maternity Block which resulted in women in labour being carried manually up the stairs, have been replaced at a cost of GH¢2.4 million.
There has been an expansion of water storage facilties to reduce frequency of the water shortages in the hospital which hitherto led to postponement of surgical operations and the hospital now has three generators which ensures continuous power supply to the hospital.
A Reproductive Health Centre has been constructed and there are a number of rehabilitation projects, including that of the surgical ground floor theatres for renal transplants and neurological procedures.
Last year, Parliament approved $250 million for the purchase of equipment for a number of public hospitals. Out of that amount, about $100 million is for the benefit of Korle-Bu.
Prominent members of the Ghanaian society, such as former President John Agyekum Kufuor and Rev Father Campbell, have recently been very impressed by the way they were treated at the hospital.
Perhaps with these improvements, the ordinary man may also have the same story to tell about Korle-Bu, the country’s flagship hospital.
With an average attendance of about 1,500 patients at its Outpatient’s Department (OPD) and 150 admissions daily, the hospital has to struggle to adequately care for its patients.
To enhance the capacity of the hospital to deal with its challenges, the Chief Executive Officer, Professor Nii Otu Nartey, has advocated that the hospital be allowed to run more like a private institution in order to raise the necessary funds to make the hospital more efficient.
He said although the government paid the salaries of the members of staff, payment for services under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and payments made by patients for consumables were inadequate, causing the hospital to continuously run at a loss.
The Daily Graphic visited the hospital on Thursday to acquaint itself with the challenges and achievements of the health facility in the face of continuous public complaints over its services.
The facility is the third largest hospital in Africa and the leading referral centre in Ghana.
It has been grappling with obsolete equipment or the unavailability of it because the old ones have given way and but not been replaced. For instance, there have been periods when there were no operating theatre tables, ventilators, suction machines, monitors and anaesthetic machines.
In addition, reports have been made about the erratic supply of electricity and water. Inadequate staff numbers to do the job are also a problem.
At the Accident Centre, patients were seen being given infusion as they sat in chairs. Others were being treated at the area around the nurses’ table because there were no beds. The same situation was observed at the Surgical Medical Emergency Centre, where some patients had to lie on benches.
Clearly, the centre had seen no rehabilitation in a long while. The few beds there had no sheets and patients who came without any slept on mattresses. The washroom was a sorry sight and if we still went by the science books, then passing infection from one patient to another was possible.
In addition to all these, patients and the members of staff had to deal with heat at the centre.
Some relatives of patients on admission were seen sprawled on card boards outside the gates of the centre because they had to stay around to run errands such as getting prescribed medications for the patients they had brought.
The situation at these two centres was pathetic.
At the Laundry Department, things were not going the way they should because of the lack of certain equipment, making operations manual.
Madam Naomi Hammond, the Head of the department, told the Daily Graphic that the laundry had three washers and two dryers which were not functioning properly.
There were no flat work ironers, forcing workers to report to work as early as 5 a.m. to iron manually in order to meet the demands of the hospital, especially linen from the theatres which had to be sent for sterilisation at a particular time.
In order to function more efficiently, Madam Hammond said the department would need six tumble dryers, eight washers and other equipment, saying that the situation now was not the best, especially when it rained.
The Childrens’ Block, with beds meant for15 children, was catering for 60 children at the time of the visit because a number of them slept on one bed as a matter of necessity. The possibility of passing on infection in such situation was very high.
To address some of the challenges, Prof Nartey was of the view that if the hospital was run like a private one, doctors, nurses and other members of staff could be paid more and thereby reduce the incidence of brain drain.
According to him, that would make doctors and other members of staff more dedicated to their patients “because they will know that if they don’t, they will lose money”.
Although he admitted that health services were more for social good, making the charging of commercial rates difficult, “that is the way we would need to finally go, in addition to a change in attitude towards work”.
Prof Nartey said he had been walking a tight rope in managing the hospital for the past four years because “you rebuke a doctor for wrongdoing and the doctors gang up against you”.
That, he said, made it difficult to deal with issues and that had led to some of the challenges the hospital was currently facing.
He described the future of the hospital as “great”, saying it was making great strides with time and gave a recent case of kidney transplant and another scheduled for April as some of the strides.
The chief executive said somehow the hospital was neglected in the past when it came to the allocation of funds from the government because of an erroneous notion that Korle-Bu could take care of itself.
That, however, changed for the better from 2008, he said.
The Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, which opened on October 9, 1923, has grown from a 200-bed capacity facility to 2,000 now.
Presently, the hospital sees an average of 1,500 patients a day at its Outpatients Department (OPD), about 150 of who are admitted.
An increase in population, however, and the refusal of most patients to use it as a referral/specialist hospital, not a general one, has rendered it frequently crowded.
According to Prof Nartey, “the argument of most patients had been: ‘Why should I go to the polyclinic when I will be eventually referred to Korle-Bu? I will go there straight’. So they come with even malaria, which could be treated at the polyclinics”.
Often patients complain about long waiting time for consultation and other services.
To that complaint, Prof Nartey responded that the hospital had set up a complaints desk to address those issues but most patients would rather not want to be mentioned in connection with any complaint, making it difficult to follow up.
He added that patients would often arrive at the hospital as early as 5.30 a.m., irrespective of the fact that the clinic they were attending started at 9 a.m., and became very irritated when doctors had to go on ward rounds before attending to them.
He thought if an efficient appointment system was run, waiting time could be reduced but it seemed the Ghanaian believed more in the “first come, first served service”.
That gloomy picture of the Korle-Bu, however, is about to change because a number of projects have been completed and new ones begun.
According to Mr Mustapha Salifu, the Public Relations Officer of the hospital, the state of affairs at the Children’s Block was to change with the construction of a temporary emergency centre for children in the block.
The laundry is also to see a rehabilitation with the necessary equipment provided. All 13 lifts which were broken down, including those at the Maternity Block which resulted in women in labour being carried manually up the stairs, have been replaced at a cost of GH¢2.4 million.
There has been an expansion of water storage facilties to reduce frequency of the water shortages in the hospital which hitherto led to postponement of surgical operations and the hospital now has three generators which ensures continuous power supply to the hospital.
A Reproductive Health Centre has been constructed and there are a number of rehabilitation projects, including that of the surgical ground floor theatres for renal transplants and neurological procedures.
Last year, Parliament approved $250 million for the purchase of equipment for a number of public hospitals. Out of that amount, about $100 million is for the benefit of Korle-Bu.
Prominent members of the Ghanaian society, such as former President John Agyekum Kufuor and Rev Father Campbell, have recently been very impressed by the way they were treated at the hospital.
Perhaps with these improvements, the ordinary man may also have the same story to tell about Korle-Bu, the country’s flagship hospital.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Training our children the right way
By Doreen Hammond
SITTING in the living room with his children, daddy opened his spark plugs so loud, to the amusement of the children. They tried to hold their laughter, turning it into a giggle and then they burst out into uncontrollable laughter!
But this was not the first time daddy had done this, and the reaction of the children had almost always been same. This state of affairs was persistent and had become a game at home.
And then one day, colleagues from daddy’s office visited. As they were chatting about the increase in fuel prices and how to cope with the situation, Kwaku, the youngest of the children, raced into their midst and let out a salvo louder than daddy had ever heard in his life. The child then followed it with laughter, to the embarrassment of everybody in the living room. In the Ghanaian culture, it is not acceptable to break wind in the midst of others.
When the visitors left, daddy expressed great anger at Kwaku’s behaviour and mother followed it up with two lashes for Kwaku. Kwaku was very surprised because what he had done was normal practice at home and wondered why he should be punished when the same thing was daddy’s pastime. His siblings were equally confused.
At the British Council Hall where a spelling competition was being held, children took their seats at 8.30a.m, the time organisers said the programme would start.
When parents and other adults arrived late at 10a.m when the programme had began, the organisers asked the children to stand behind the hall so the adults could sit. The adults who had arrived at the programme a whole hour and half late were comfortably seated while the children who did the right thing by coming on time had to stand throughout the programme.
And then in a queue for kelewele, a child had been waiting his turn for almost 30 minutes. It seemed he would not be served any time soon because any adult who came to buy passed him by to get his. It was not strange to the child though because persistently, that had been his experience with adults everywhere he went and a little complaint to catch attention resulted in the retort, “ Hey, don’t you respect?”.
The plight of the child is not any better in the classroom setting. In a first aid class, the teacher taught the children that if bitten on the leg by a snake, something like a piece of cloth or a tie could be used to tie the part above the bite to stop the blood from circulating to the other parts of the body and by so doing prevent poison from circulating.
One of the pupils asked the teacher where to tie if the snake bite was on the neck. This question, which the teacher had no answer to, earned the child six lashes of the cane for asking a “stupid question” though in truth a snake bite may not necessarily be on the leg. It is not the habit of most adults to accept, in the presence of a child, that they do not know something and would, therefore, attempt to find out. In reality, do adults know everything under the sun?
I often hear parents and other adults talking about how children these days don’t respect and ask questions they would never have dared ask in their time.
What these complainants have failed to realise is that those times are past and may never come again and respect is not only a reciprocal thing but something that is also earned. Added to this, our stage of civilisation and development have culminated in children with curious minds. They not only want to know what is but why things are the way they are and what they are likely to become.
The days when parents just took any decision for their children without any form of consultation is in the past. Children these days would want to make an input into what affects them, even to the extent of determining what they wear.
They see you dressed up and the question you are likely to face is: Where are you going? Yes, they need to know where you are just like you need to know where they are and what is wrong with that?
By our very conduct as adults and role models for children in society, we have succeeded in teaching children so many unacceptable attitudes and behaviour and turned around to complain when the children have done the same things that they have seen us do and say what they have heard us say.
Take the parent who persistently asks his child to tell visitors he is out of town while he hides in his room, for instance, and tell me why he should be upset when his child tells a lie. Same point.
Dr Benedictus Wozuame, a clinical psychologist, psycho-therapist and medical doctor at the Pantang Hospital, describes the formative years of children, especially between 12 and 18, as critical to the habits and behaviour they form.
He says that by age 18, the behaviour of man would have been formed and it becomes difficult to change.
Dr Wozuame explains that the behaviour of adults in the home setting is likely to be learnt by children in that home if that behaviour is persistent.
“Our children often imitate how we talk, eat, shout; almost everything we do at home, therefore, we as adults should behave well so they copy the right things”, he said.
This means that the persistent behaviour of adults in the home setting could influence the behaviour of children as they grow into adults.
It is difficult to understand why adults would always turn round to complain about the behaviour of children when they do not act as good role models for them.
Why should the children who run around a lot, burn more calories and perform all the household chores be served with crumbs while the already overweight father is given the sumptuous portions of the meal?
Even though as humans we may have our own frailties, we should never forget that our children will do what they see us doing. We must, therefore, make a conscious effort to put our best foot forward so that they pick the best of our habits.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
SITTING in the living room with his children, daddy opened his spark plugs so loud, to the amusement of the children. They tried to hold their laughter, turning it into a giggle and then they burst out into uncontrollable laughter!
But this was not the first time daddy had done this, and the reaction of the children had almost always been same. This state of affairs was persistent and had become a game at home.
And then one day, colleagues from daddy’s office visited. As they were chatting about the increase in fuel prices and how to cope with the situation, Kwaku, the youngest of the children, raced into their midst and let out a salvo louder than daddy had ever heard in his life. The child then followed it with laughter, to the embarrassment of everybody in the living room. In the Ghanaian culture, it is not acceptable to break wind in the midst of others.
When the visitors left, daddy expressed great anger at Kwaku’s behaviour and mother followed it up with two lashes for Kwaku. Kwaku was very surprised because what he had done was normal practice at home and wondered why he should be punished when the same thing was daddy’s pastime. His siblings were equally confused.
At the British Council Hall where a spelling competition was being held, children took their seats at 8.30a.m, the time organisers said the programme would start.
When parents and other adults arrived late at 10a.m when the programme had began, the organisers asked the children to stand behind the hall so the adults could sit. The adults who had arrived at the programme a whole hour and half late were comfortably seated while the children who did the right thing by coming on time had to stand throughout the programme.
And then in a queue for kelewele, a child had been waiting his turn for almost 30 minutes. It seemed he would not be served any time soon because any adult who came to buy passed him by to get his. It was not strange to the child though because persistently, that had been his experience with adults everywhere he went and a little complaint to catch attention resulted in the retort, “ Hey, don’t you respect?”.
The plight of the child is not any better in the classroom setting. In a first aid class, the teacher taught the children that if bitten on the leg by a snake, something like a piece of cloth or a tie could be used to tie the part above the bite to stop the blood from circulating to the other parts of the body and by so doing prevent poison from circulating.
One of the pupils asked the teacher where to tie if the snake bite was on the neck. This question, which the teacher had no answer to, earned the child six lashes of the cane for asking a “stupid question” though in truth a snake bite may not necessarily be on the leg. It is not the habit of most adults to accept, in the presence of a child, that they do not know something and would, therefore, attempt to find out. In reality, do adults know everything under the sun?
I often hear parents and other adults talking about how children these days don’t respect and ask questions they would never have dared ask in their time.
What these complainants have failed to realise is that those times are past and may never come again and respect is not only a reciprocal thing but something that is also earned. Added to this, our stage of civilisation and development have culminated in children with curious minds. They not only want to know what is but why things are the way they are and what they are likely to become.
The days when parents just took any decision for their children without any form of consultation is in the past. Children these days would want to make an input into what affects them, even to the extent of determining what they wear.
They see you dressed up and the question you are likely to face is: Where are you going? Yes, they need to know where you are just like you need to know where they are and what is wrong with that?
By our very conduct as adults and role models for children in society, we have succeeded in teaching children so many unacceptable attitudes and behaviour and turned around to complain when the children have done the same things that they have seen us do and say what they have heard us say.
Take the parent who persistently asks his child to tell visitors he is out of town while he hides in his room, for instance, and tell me why he should be upset when his child tells a lie. Same point.
Dr Benedictus Wozuame, a clinical psychologist, psycho-therapist and medical doctor at the Pantang Hospital, describes the formative years of children, especially between 12 and 18, as critical to the habits and behaviour they form.
He says that by age 18, the behaviour of man would have been formed and it becomes difficult to change.
Dr Wozuame explains that the behaviour of adults in the home setting is likely to be learnt by children in that home if that behaviour is persistent.
“Our children often imitate how we talk, eat, shout; almost everything we do at home, therefore, we as adults should behave well so they copy the right things”, he said.
This means that the persistent behaviour of adults in the home setting could influence the behaviour of children as they grow into adults.
It is difficult to understand why adults would always turn round to complain about the behaviour of children when they do not act as good role models for them.
Why should the children who run around a lot, burn more calories and perform all the household chores be served with crumbs while the already overweight father is given the sumptuous portions of the meal?
Even though as humans we may have our own frailties, we should never forget that our children will do what they see us doing. We must, therefore, make a conscious effort to put our best foot forward so that they pick the best of our habits.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
The ups and down of Valentine’s day
By Doreen Hammond
CHOCOLATES, flowers , teddy bears and the colour red, which symbolises love, dominates many parts of the city as February 14, Valentine’s day, approached.
Clothing shops dressed their mannequins in red and in One shop at Osu, a red pant adorned the frontage .
Shops which sell greeting cards and gifts are draped in red with banners advertising stocks meant for the day at attractive prices. The driving force may not be the intention to make sure Ghanaians share love but an economic one-- taking advantage of the day to make sales.There is absolutely nothing wrong with that; it is business. Or shall we say it is a matter of killing two birds with one stone? Making money and sharing love simultaneously?
Some seven years ago, Ghanaians, propelled by media hype, took the celebration of St Valentine’s day, which was not traditionally Ghanaian like Christmas , to a level never seen in this country . Many Ghanaians wore red, wine and white believed to be the colours of Valentine and made sure they bought a gift to share with a loved one. That was not strange because in today’s globalised world it becomes difficult to sit on an island touting what is exclusively Ghanaian. To a large extent, many ,especially the youth , see this Valentine love as a romantic one, between lovers and not between family members or just friends.
For most of our youth, the day was not for the single but the attached because something had to happen before the day was over.
Under trees, on beaches and dark alleys, the morning after Valentine was often a huge exhibition of used condoms. Thank God for condoms though, for the results of such misadventures could have been catastrophic. The day for some had to be necessarily marked with booze and jams.
Sending of carefully crafted text messages also characterises the day. In the attempt to send to all, males may end up sending love messages to males but that cannot be out of place because males need to be loved too and in Ghana today where homosexuality is struggling to make a strong statement , love messages to males will certainly not be strange.
Some of these messages have however brought tragedy rather than love and joy to some couples in the past. An incident which readily comes to mind is that of a soldier who was on duty at the Castle, Osu on February 14, 2005. He had seized his girlfriend’s cell phone the previous night to monitor calls and text messages out of suspicion and was outraged by what he saw. The result was that he shot his girlfriend, shot and killed his girlfriend’s friend and killed himself.
The Ghana Tourism Authority took advantage of the negativities that characterised the celebration of Valentine by launching a positive campaign to get the day more associated with chocolates, encouraging Ghanaians to buy and share chocolate since it was healthy, especially good for the heart.
Another institution, the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Ghana Mathematics Society, in 2007, attempted to make it a day to create awareness for the importance of Mathematics and how to make its teaching and learning simple. This day was dubbed Maths day but it seems not to have caught on as widely as intended.
Over the past three years, the Valentine fever went down but seems to be rising high again this year with the preparations and atmosphere evident in the city.
Some churches would be organising programmes for the youth and preaching love.
Love is sharing, love is kind , love is patient, love is tolerant and forgiving , so go on, spread the love . Take advantage of the day to make your world better. Have a happy Valentine’s day.
CHOCOLATES, flowers , teddy bears and the colour red, which symbolises love, dominates many parts of the city as February 14, Valentine’s day, approached.
Clothing shops dressed their mannequins in red and in One shop at Osu, a red pant adorned the frontage .
Shops which sell greeting cards and gifts are draped in red with banners advertising stocks meant for the day at attractive prices. The driving force may not be the intention to make sure Ghanaians share love but an economic one-- taking advantage of the day to make sales.There is absolutely nothing wrong with that; it is business. Or shall we say it is a matter of killing two birds with one stone? Making money and sharing love simultaneously?
Some seven years ago, Ghanaians, propelled by media hype, took the celebration of St Valentine’s day, which was not traditionally Ghanaian like Christmas , to a level never seen in this country . Many Ghanaians wore red, wine and white believed to be the colours of Valentine and made sure they bought a gift to share with a loved one. That was not strange because in today’s globalised world it becomes difficult to sit on an island touting what is exclusively Ghanaian. To a large extent, many ,especially the youth , see this Valentine love as a romantic one, between lovers and not between family members or just friends.
For most of our youth, the day was not for the single but the attached because something had to happen before the day was over.
Under trees, on beaches and dark alleys, the morning after Valentine was often a huge exhibition of used condoms. Thank God for condoms though, for the results of such misadventures could have been catastrophic. The day for some had to be necessarily marked with booze and jams.
Sending of carefully crafted text messages also characterises the day. In the attempt to send to all, males may end up sending love messages to males but that cannot be out of place because males need to be loved too and in Ghana today where homosexuality is struggling to make a strong statement , love messages to males will certainly not be strange.
Some of these messages have however brought tragedy rather than love and joy to some couples in the past. An incident which readily comes to mind is that of a soldier who was on duty at the Castle, Osu on February 14, 2005. He had seized his girlfriend’s cell phone the previous night to monitor calls and text messages out of suspicion and was outraged by what he saw. The result was that he shot his girlfriend, shot and killed his girlfriend’s friend and killed himself.
The Ghana Tourism Authority took advantage of the negativities that characterised the celebration of Valentine by launching a positive campaign to get the day more associated with chocolates, encouraging Ghanaians to buy and share chocolate since it was healthy, especially good for the heart.
Another institution, the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Ghana Mathematics Society, in 2007, attempted to make it a day to create awareness for the importance of Mathematics and how to make its teaching and learning simple. This day was dubbed Maths day but it seems not to have caught on as widely as intended.
Over the past three years, the Valentine fever went down but seems to be rising high again this year with the preparations and atmosphere evident in the city.
Some churches would be organising programmes for the youth and preaching love.
Love is sharing, love is kind , love is patient, love is tolerant and forgiving , so go on, spread the love . Take advantage of the day to make your world better. Have a happy Valentine’s day.
How independent are Ghanaians after 55 years?
By Doreen Hammond
We would be heading again for the Independence Square on March 6, as part of activities to mark 55 years of the country’s independence. Similar activities will be held at the regional and district levels throughout the country.
As is statutorily the case, the day would be declared a public holiday and most Ghanaians would rejoice and be glad in it, especially workers who will have a day off from work.
Rightly so because this day marks the beginning of our journey into statehood and self determination after years of British colonial rule. A journey which took off at the Old Polo Grounds with Dr Kwame Nkrumah in the driving seat, surrounded by the indefatigable big six namely, Ebenezer Ako-Adjei, Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey, Dr J. B. Danquah, Edward Akufo Addo and William Ofori Atta.
To all these gallant sons and daughters and others who cannot be mentioned, we salute you for your sacrifices in bringing us this far. It is in this regard that we share in the recent honouring of the Osagyefo by the AU with the mounting of his statue at the forecourt of the new AU headquarters in Adis-Ababa; an attestation to the saying that indeed, Nkrumah never dies.
Having said these, let us also use the occasion to do an assessment of our performance on the developmental journey. Such a reflection would afford us the space to determine how far we have come in the last 55 years, where we are going and how we intend to get there. As the saying goes, an unexamined life is not worth living.
In spite of our initial track record with military coup d’etats, Ghana is now touted as one of the few democratic countries on a continent rife with political and social upheavals. With comparatively peaceful, free and fair elections since 1992 and still counting, these achievements can be no fluke.
Ghanaians have also promoted freedom of expression as enshrined in our 1992 Constitution as a requisite for democracy. But to a large extent we have not backed this freedom of speech with the corresponding responsibility and this is quite worrisome. We have turned the many radio stations that have come into being into platforms for trading insults, and that is far from what democracy means.
Our economic indicators also seem to point at the right direction as inflation, GDP and growth are all said to be on course, though the reality, as far as our pockets are concerned, is different.
We are also not doing badly in general infrastructural build-up, especially in the areas of road, schools under trees and some health facilities in the rural areas.
The rule of law seems to be working to some appreciable extent, even if there is room for improvement. To a large extent also, we have managed to remain together as one people with a common sense of purpose and destiny. This should not detract from the fact that cronyism and ethnocentrism seem to be on the rise in recent times with some groups preferring to play the tribal or ethnic card at the expense of our collective good as a people.
Be that as it may, these and many more are achievements worthy of celebrating by any country.
Despite these achievements we still have a long way to go. If we were to do a dispassionate post-mortem and answer the question: how truly independent can we claim to be 55 years down the line, I’m sure the answer would be a mixed one and the reasons are not far fetched.
For instance, reports indicate that about half of the population of Ghanaians (51 per cent) do not have decent places of convenience. The Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate (EHSD) of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development recently made this known and explained that 12 million Ghanaians are forced to practise open defecation, which poses health hazards. While other countries may be building sophisticated war ships, nuclear plants and embarking on space expeditions, we are still grappling with the problem of where to empty our bowels after 55 years of nationhood. This is clearly an indictment on our collective selves as a nation and all efforts should be made to right this wrong. This is clearly not a mark of a mature state.
Fifty-five years down the line and we are not producing enough to feed ourselves. We import almost everything from snails to tomatoes. Our farming is still mainly subsistent and we depend on the hoe and cutlass and rain to water our crops.
We have not been able to develop and expand irrigation systems to control when we have crops in abundance and when we will not. Ours is that of seasonal farming and that is why we either have a glut on our market or a shortage. Even while we have tomatoes in abundance we have not been able to preserve them in tins, for example, and our market has been flooded with different kinds of tinned tomatoes from other countries. The effect of this state of affairs on our economy as relates to foreign exchange is obvious.
Fifty-five years down the line and we have not been able to institute educational policies that give clear directions as to where we want our children to go. We have reviewed a four-year senior high school duration to a three-year one without putting the necessary infrastructure in place to accommodate the policy.
As a result we watched on as our children were cramped like sardines in classrooms and dining halls turned into dormitories without the appropriate facilities. The children entered senior high school before we thought of building classrooms where they will sit to learn. What happened to planning? The ad hoc policies have translated into poor results across board.
Fifty-five years down the line and even the Surgical Medical Emergency Department of our last-stop hospital, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, lacks the basic logistics and infrastructure that would ensure that a patient gets the best of care. Not because staff are not qualified but because the tools to work with are not available; even critical equipment like a theatre bed has become a challenge. Health care is still a nightmare with run-down facilities in most of our health facilities. What are we using our taxes for?
We have not been able to plan ahead to contain the numbers in our hospitals to the extent that once a patient is on admission, relatives would have to be at hand to provide nursing care, whether in the right or wrong way because nurses are inadequate to meet the workload.
Fifty-five years down the line and most of us have succeeded in throwing away our various Ghanaian languages which make us Ghanaian, preferring to speak only English and still give names that our colonial masters left for us to give our children; and we call ourselves independent?
How independent have we become when our youth continue to believe that success can only be achieved in another land and not our own?
Fifty-five years down the line and you will be surprised how many Ghanaians will race on board a ship docked at the port, ready to send people into any foreign land to do menial jobs.
Rail transport, which seems our best bet at easing the heavy traffic in the capital has eluded us. Promises of a railway line from Accra to Paga have turned out to be empty talk.
Forging ahead, we need to continue to take account of our strengths and weaknesses. We should continue to build on the things that unite us as a people and eschew all negative attitudes that would lead us onto the path of self-destruction.
Collectively and individually, we should always be guided by the words of one of our patriotic songs which says that “Others came and did their bit and it is now our turn to also build on”. The big question is: Are we building anything that would make posterity proud of us?
We should all resolve to work harder, be more patriotic and remain united as a people so that next year by this time we can give a more positive account of our stewardship. Ghanaians are in one ship called Ghana and if it sinks, we all sink together.
We would be heading again for the Independence Square on March 6, as part of activities to mark 55 years of the country’s independence. Similar activities will be held at the regional and district levels throughout the country.
As is statutorily the case, the day would be declared a public holiday and most Ghanaians would rejoice and be glad in it, especially workers who will have a day off from work.
Rightly so because this day marks the beginning of our journey into statehood and self determination after years of British colonial rule. A journey which took off at the Old Polo Grounds with Dr Kwame Nkrumah in the driving seat, surrounded by the indefatigable big six namely, Ebenezer Ako-Adjei, Emmanuel Obetsebi-Lamptey, Dr J. B. Danquah, Edward Akufo Addo and William Ofori Atta.
To all these gallant sons and daughters and others who cannot be mentioned, we salute you for your sacrifices in bringing us this far. It is in this regard that we share in the recent honouring of the Osagyefo by the AU with the mounting of his statue at the forecourt of the new AU headquarters in Adis-Ababa; an attestation to the saying that indeed, Nkrumah never dies.
Having said these, let us also use the occasion to do an assessment of our performance on the developmental journey. Such a reflection would afford us the space to determine how far we have come in the last 55 years, where we are going and how we intend to get there. As the saying goes, an unexamined life is not worth living.
In spite of our initial track record with military coup d’etats, Ghana is now touted as one of the few democratic countries on a continent rife with political and social upheavals. With comparatively peaceful, free and fair elections since 1992 and still counting, these achievements can be no fluke.
Ghanaians have also promoted freedom of expression as enshrined in our 1992 Constitution as a requisite for democracy. But to a large extent we have not backed this freedom of speech with the corresponding responsibility and this is quite worrisome. We have turned the many radio stations that have come into being into platforms for trading insults, and that is far from what democracy means.
Our economic indicators also seem to point at the right direction as inflation, GDP and growth are all said to be on course, though the reality, as far as our pockets are concerned, is different.
We are also not doing badly in general infrastructural build-up, especially in the areas of road, schools under trees and some health facilities in the rural areas.
The rule of law seems to be working to some appreciable extent, even if there is room for improvement. To a large extent also, we have managed to remain together as one people with a common sense of purpose and destiny. This should not detract from the fact that cronyism and ethnocentrism seem to be on the rise in recent times with some groups preferring to play the tribal or ethnic card at the expense of our collective good as a people.
Be that as it may, these and many more are achievements worthy of celebrating by any country.
Despite these achievements we still have a long way to go. If we were to do a dispassionate post-mortem and answer the question: how truly independent can we claim to be 55 years down the line, I’m sure the answer would be a mixed one and the reasons are not far fetched.
For instance, reports indicate that about half of the population of Ghanaians (51 per cent) do not have decent places of convenience. The Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate (EHSD) of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development recently made this known and explained that 12 million Ghanaians are forced to practise open defecation, which poses health hazards. While other countries may be building sophisticated war ships, nuclear plants and embarking on space expeditions, we are still grappling with the problem of where to empty our bowels after 55 years of nationhood. This is clearly an indictment on our collective selves as a nation and all efforts should be made to right this wrong. This is clearly not a mark of a mature state.
Fifty-five years down the line and we are not producing enough to feed ourselves. We import almost everything from snails to tomatoes. Our farming is still mainly subsistent and we depend on the hoe and cutlass and rain to water our crops.
We have not been able to develop and expand irrigation systems to control when we have crops in abundance and when we will not. Ours is that of seasonal farming and that is why we either have a glut on our market or a shortage. Even while we have tomatoes in abundance we have not been able to preserve them in tins, for example, and our market has been flooded with different kinds of tinned tomatoes from other countries. The effect of this state of affairs on our economy as relates to foreign exchange is obvious.
Fifty-five years down the line and we have not been able to institute educational policies that give clear directions as to where we want our children to go. We have reviewed a four-year senior high school duration to a three-year one without putting the necessary infrastructure in place to accommodate the policy.
As a result we watched on as our children were cramped like sardines in classrooms and dining halls turned into dormitories without the appropriate facilities. The children entered senior high school before we thought of building classrooms where they will sit to learn. What happened to planning? The ad hoc policies have translated into poor results across board.
Fifty-five years down the line and even the Surgical Medical Emergency Department of our last-stop hospital, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, lacks the basic logistics and infrastructure that would ensure that a patient gets the best of care. Not because staff are not qualified but because the tools to work with are not available; even critical equipment like a theatre bed has become a challenge. Health care is still a nightmare with run-down facilities in most of our health facilities. What are we using our taxes for?
We have not been able to plan ahead to contain the numbers in our hospitals to the extent that once a patient is on admission, relatives would have to be at hand to provide nursing care, whether in the right or wrong way because nurses are inadequate to meet the workload.
Fifty-five years down the line and most of us have succeeded in throwing away our various Ghanaian languages which make us Ghanaian, preferring to speak only English and still give names that our colonial masters left for us to give our children; and we call ourselves independent?
How independent have we become when our youth continue to believe that success can only be achieved in another land and not our own?
Fifty-five years down the line and you will be surprised how many Ghanaians will race on board a ship docked at the port, ready to send people into any foreign land to do menial jobs.
Rail transport, which seems our best bet at easing the heavy traffic in the capital has eluded us. Promises of a railway line from Accra to Paga have turned out to be empty talk.
Forging ahead, we need to continue to take account of our strengths and weaknesses. We should continue to build on the things that unite us as a people and eschew all negative attitudes that would lead us onto the path of self-destruction.
Collectively and individually, we should always be guided by the words of one of our patriotic songs which says that “Others came and did their bit and it is now our turn to also build on”. The big question is: Are we building anything that would make posterity proud of us?
We should all resolve to work harder, be more patriotic and remain united as a people so that next year by this time we can give a more positive account of our stewardship. Ghanaians are in one ship called Ghana and if it sinks, we all sink together.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Who protects the househelp?
By Doreen Hammond
The recent story in the news about the molestation of a house help to the extent of burning her back with a hot pressing iron and breaking her legs was very pathetic.
It is not as if the plight of the house help has ever been good but this particular story of such inhumane treatment to someone whose job is to help the upkeep of home, defied human reasoning.
This 19 year old house help was said to have been locked in a toilet and brought out occasionally for further maltreatment. If this had happened in the days of Kunta Kinte in the film Roots, I could have believed it but in 21st century Ghana? Well, the Police are investigating and it will be interesting to know the outcome of the case.
The phenomenon of keeping house helps who used to be referred to as maidservants, maids or house girls is not a new one. It became very common when women began to take on multiple roles as home keepers, workers and breadwinners and started working outside their homes . With the gradual erosion of the extended family system which used to provide support for the nuclear family, the house help became a savior to most homes.
In addition to this , the present economic situation most families find themselves in has made the services of the house help even more necessary. The house helps take on the role of helping to care for children, washing, cooking, ironing and doing general household chores as mother and father leave their homes very early in the morning in search of money for the payment of school fees, high electricity bills, water, to buy food, clothes and pay for shelter.
In spite of the critical role house helps play in homes, their general conditions of service have remained poor. They don’t have much of a choice as to what to eat with some getting gari after pounding mounds of fufu or even sharing the meals of the dogs. To top it all up, house helps do not have the many liberties that the household enjoys yet they are expected to be the first to wake up and the last to go to bed irrespective of the fact that they have no proper sleeping places and they enjoy no medical cover.
From some village and with no idea about the people she has been brought to live with , the house help is supposed to quickly adjust , shirking off her initial psychological fear of the unknown and get down to duty.
The case of those who are old is much better than that of children who should be in school but have become house helps because of the difficult economic situations in their homes.
In the some homes their general appearance easily give them away for what they are—servants, in spite of the term house help that has been coined for them recently. Either they are wearing some over sized dresses, or you find them in an old kaba belonging to madam but with a different kind of skirt or slit which does not match. You could still argue that they are better of being in such clothes than the tattered ones they had in the village.
In verbal contracts signed with parents or their guardians, moneys may change hands but hardly is such money felt by the house help. The house help is the beast of burden. Promises of a better life and even education are often left at the very place they were made.
In homes where there are unscrupulous and henpecked masters with madams who seem a little bit on the heavy side , some of these house helps end up warming the beds of the master yet master still draws the whip at the slightest opportunity to avoid detection.
Though this situation seems to be changing, with some families putting house helps into trade and school after a stipulated period of service, how many house helps have such luck?
The country has seen the springing up of some agencies which recruit people to serve as house helps in homes. These agencies collect moneys for placing house helps not only from the employer but the house help too. She has to send a part of everything she earns to the agency. Here again it is the house help who gets fleeced of the little she makes from her toil and sweat.
These agencies give the semblance of a well organised institution. There are forms to be filled and contracts to be signed and passport pictures but the contract signed is no guarantee that a house help would stay with you till the expiration of that contract. These agencies claim to charge so much because they train the house help. But it is very difficult to tell what kind of training they get especially with house help brought from the village in the night and given away by morning.
These agencies are not able to guarantee the character of the house help because they do no background check of the house help they give away. In such cases the house help could leave the home with valuables and there will be no means to trace her.
The primary aim of these agencies therefore is not to provide service but to make moneys from both the house help and the one who hires her.
As humans, house helps cannot be said to be without their own short comings. Even with those who work on an agreed allowance, their whole attitude to work is as though they are doing a favour to their employer.
On a daily basis their duties have to be spelt out to them and they would always deliberately cut corners like sweeping only parts of a room they have been assigned to, breaking glasses and other kitchen equipment out of sheer carelessness and show a general lack of concern for items in the home because they don’t feel a part of it. Laziness and petty theft cannot be disassociated from them.
In even more serious cases, stories have been told of how house helps have abused children left in their care by even going to the extent of introducing them to sex.
Looking at the way things are going, house helps are going to be part of the family system for a very long time to come. It is a matter of demand and supply.
The industry of house helps and their working conditions cannot continue like this. If they are being hired to work, house helps must necessarily be of the age of consent, and there must be modalities and laws put in place and enforced to see to it that they are not exploited. They must also be made to understand that there are rules governing their work and they must provide the services they are being paid to provide.
At the end of the day it should be a win-win situation for the house help, the family and the agency.
The recent story in the news about the molestation of a house help to the extent of burning her back with a hot pressing iron and breaking her legs was very pathetic.
It is not as if the plight of the house help has ever been good but this particular story of such inhumane treatment to someone whose job is to help the upkeep of home, defied human reasoning.
This 19 year old house help was said to have been locked in a toilet and brought out occasionally for further maltreatment. If this had happened in the days of Kunta Kinte in the film Roots, I could have believed it but in 21st century Ghana? Well, the Police are investigating and it will be interesting to know the outcome of the case.
The phenomenon of keeping house helps who used to be referred to as maidservants, maids or house girls is not a new one. It became very common when women began to take on multiple roles as home keepers, workers and breadwinners and started working outside their homes . With the gradual erosion of the extended family system which used to provide support for the nuclear family, the house help became a savior to most homes.
In addition to this , the present economic situation most families find themselves in has made the services of the house help even more necessary. The house helps take on the role of helping to care for children, washing, cooking, ironing and doing general household chores as mother and father leave their homes very early in the morning in search of money for the payment of school fees, high electricity bills, water, to buy food, clothes and pay for shelter.
In spite of the critical role house helps play in homes, their general conditions of service have remained poor. They don’t have much of a choice as to what to eat with some getting gari after pounding mounds of fufu or even sharing the meals of the dogs. To top it all up, house helps do not have the many liberties that the household enjoys yet they are expected to be the first to wake up and the last to go to bed irrespective of the fact that they have no proper sleeping places and they enjoy no medical cover.
From some village and with no idea about the people she has been brought to live with , the house help is supposed to quickly adjust , shirking off her initial psychological fear of the unknown and get down to duty.
The case of those who are old is much better than that of children who should be in school but have become house helps because of the difficult economic situations in their homes.
In the some homes their general appearance easily give them away for what they are—servants, in spite of the term house help that has been coined for them recently. Either they are wearing some over sized dresses, or you find them in an old kaba belonging to madam but with a different kind of skirt or slit which does not match. You could still argue that they are better of being in such clothes than the tattered ones they had in the village.
In verbal contracts signed with parents or their guardians, moneys may change hands but hardly is such money felt by the house help. The house help is the beast of burden. Promises of a better life and even education are often left at the very place they were made.
In homes where there are unscrupulous and henpecked masters with madams who seem a little bit on the heavy side , some of these house helps end up warming the beds of the master yet master still draws the whip at the slightest opportunity to avoid detection.
Though this situation seems to be changing, with some families putting house helps into trade and school after a stipulated period of service, how many house helps have such luck?
The country has seen the springing up of some agencies which recruit people to serve as house helps in homes. These agencies collect moneys for placing house helps not only from the employer but the house help too. She has to send a part of everything she earns to the agency. Here again it is the house help who gets fleeced of the little she makes from her toil and sweat.
These agencies give the semblance of a well organised institution. There are forms to be filled and contracts to be signed and passport pictures but the contract signed is no guarantee that a house help would stay with you till the expiration of that contract. These agencies claim to charge so much because they train the house help. But it is very difficult to tell what kind of training they get especially with house help brought from the village in the night and given away by morning.
These agencies are not able to guarantee the character of the house help because they do no background check of the house help they give away. In such cases the house help could leave the home with valuables and there will be no means to trace her.
The primary aim of these agencies therefore is not to provide service but to make moneys from both the house help and the one who hires her.
As humans, house helps cannot be said to be without their own short comings. Even with those who work on an agreed allowance, their whole attitude to work is as though they are doing a favour to their employer.
On a daily basis their duties have to be spelt out to them and they would always deliberately cut corners like sweeping only parts of a room they have been assigned to, breaking glasses and other kitchen equipment out of sheer carelessness and show a general lack of concern for items in the home because they don’t feel a part of it. Laziness and petty theft cannot be disassociated from them.
In even more serious cases, stories have been told of how house helps have abused children left in their care by even going to the extent of introducing them to sex.
Looking at the way things are going, house helps are going to be part of the family system for a very long time to come. It is a matter of demand and supply.
The industry of house helps and their working conditions cannot continue like this. If they are being hired to work, house helps must necessarily be of the age of consent, and there must be modalities and laws put in place and enforced to see to it that they are not exploited. They must also be made to understand that there are rules governing their work and they must provide the services they are being paid to provide.
At the end of the day it should be a win-win situation for the house help, the family and the agency.
The devil called PTA
By Doreen Hammond
It is difficult to put a date to when the slogan “Government cannot do it alone” began, but it seems to have come to stay and is being used by many state institutions as the reason why almost all sectors of our country are not running efficiently.
In the education sector, the slogan has translated into the formation of Parent –Teacher Associations (PTAs) in almost every basic and senior high school in the country.
It is equally difficult to trace when PTAs became part of our educational set up and who mooted an otherwise brilliant idea now turned into an instrument to fleece helpless parents. But my father tells me that when he was a student at Accra Academy in the fifties, this devil had not been conceived let alone born.
On the surface and as contained in many of the constitutions of these PTAs, they are to create and foster understanding and cooperation between parents / guardians and teachers in the training of their children.
These associations are supposed to facilitate the parental participation in the activities of the school for the benefit of the students. They are also to stimulate and maintain interest in the academic standards, sustain discipline and promote extracurricular activities. It also includes raising funds to support the development of the schools infrastructure.
Somehow these associations remain one that needs no registration to become a member and is not optional, once a child gains admission into a school, his parents or guardians become automatic members and that is why a parent could be penalised in the form of fines for not attending meetings. Even if a PTA meeting clashes with the burial of your mother, you are supposed to defer to the PTA or risk being fined for your absence!
Wonderful and well intentioned objectives they may look on paper but what have these PTAs been really up to in schools and how are they benefitting parents and students especially in public schools?
Discussions at these PTA meetings have been dominated by money. It has always been centred on collecting levies for everything from poly tanks to building classroom blocks, dormitories, teacher’s bungalows and even paying for chairs on which parents and teachers sit during such PTA meetings. The latest addition is electricity bills.
Apart from the Government approved fees for students / pupils in the case of public schools, parents at these meetings end up being cajoled into paying for so many things including what is termed “motivation” to teachers for doing the work they have been employed by the Ghana Education Service to do—teaching.
Even in private schools where the school is solely owned by a proprietor as a business entity, the PTAs are even more powerful. Parents are made to pay for all sorts of things including walls to fence the school even though they have no shares in the school.
Most meetings are hijacked by the cronies of the heads who are most often the chairmen of these associations to carry through the ideas of the heads, making believe that those ideas are those of parents.
For boarding schools, meetings are normally held on visiting days, a strategy to get parents to attend. Under duress, parents are made to sit through long hours of meetings while their minds are only centred on one thing—to see their children.
Apart from a few parents who question the impositions on parents, the rest sit and look on, for after all, question or no question it is the PTA chairman, the head of the school and the teachers who win. Sometimes something which is purported to be audited accounts are read out. In that state of mind all the parent wants to do is to get out of the room and see his/her child.
PTAs in some schools have become an avenue for some people to flaunt their wealth as these so called rich men keep proposing new projects without any consideration for the pocket of the less endowed parent.
When is enough supposed to be enough? Is the continuous existence of PTAs a statement on government’s inability to discharge what is clearly one of its constitutional requirements which is the provision of education? Why have successive governments not seen anything wrong with the excesses of PTAs? Let us say PTAs came about as a result of population growth but then what happened to planning to meet such growth?
The responsibility of education delivery in public schools should be that of Government and the role of the PTA should be purely supportive and voluntary, specifically ensuring the welfare of the child in the school.
The slogan of “Government cannot do it alone” is allowing Government to get away from its responsibilities of providing what the tax payers money is supposed to be used for.
So now we buy our own electricity poles, create our own water companies in our homes by digging our own bore holes, buy our own street lights, maintain the roads that lead to our communities and provide our own neighborhood security.
So what does the government provide for us to justify our continuous payment of taxes?
What happens to the many projects that parents contribute to building or providing after their children have left the schools when they are not shareholders of the school? No dividends?
The intention of running away from the high cost of private schools is often defeated by these associations which prefer to call themselves PTAs. Parents are already burdened with providing food, clothing and shelter for their children outside the school environment and their situation must not be compounded by the activities of these so called PTAs.
Certainly education is too important to be toyed with to the extent that even classroom blocks should be left on the shoulders of parents to build.
This trend of events must stop and PTAs must be called to order. They must be regulated in some way.
Alternatively, the government should come out openly to ask parents to pay for the facilities that they are unable to provide in the public schools. Payment for facilities which the Government is not providing “because the Government cannot do it alone” should be added officially to the school fees so that parents could plan and there will also be some transparency.
The PTA as it operates now is an otherwise brilliant idea that has been high jacked by a few to fleece already over burdened parents. This should not be allowed to go on. And that is why I could not help but agree with a parent who referred to it as the devil!
It is difficult to put a date to when the slogan “Government cannot do it alone” began, but it seems to have come to stay and is being used by many state institutions as the reason why almost all sectors of our country are not running efficiently.
In the education sector, the slogan has translated into the formation of Parent –Teacher Associations (PTAs) in almost every basic and senior high school in the country.
It is equally difficult to trace when PTAs became part of our educational set up and who mooted an otherwise brilliant idea now turned into an instrument to fleece helpless parents. But my father tells me that when he was a student at Accra Academy in the fifties, this devil had not been conceived let alone born.
On the surface and as contained in many of the constitutions of these PTAs, they are to create and foster understanding and cooperation between parents / guardians and teachers in the training of their children.
These associations are supposed to facilitate the parental participation in the activities of the school for the benefit of the students. They are also to stimulate and maintain interest in the academic standards, sustain discipline and promote extracurricular activities. It also includes raising funds to support the development of the schools infrastructure.
Somehow these associations remain one that needs no registration to become a member and is not optional, once a child gains admission into a school, his parents or guardians become automatic members and that is why a parent could be penalised in the form of fines for not attending meetings. Even if a PTA meeting clashes with the burial of your mother, you are supposed to defer to the PTA or risk being fined for your absence!
Wonderful and well intentioned objectives they may look on paper but what have these PTAs been really up to in schools and how are they benefitting parents and students especially in public schools?
Discussions at these PTA meetings have been dominated by money. It has always been centred on collecting levies for everything from poly tanks to building classroom blocks, dormitories, teacher’s bungalows and even paying for chairs on which parents and teachers sit during such PTA meetings. The latest addition is electricity bills.
Apart from the Government approved fees for students / pupils in the case of public schools, parents at these meetings end up being cajoled into paying for so many things including what is termed “motivation” to teachers for doing the work they have been employed by the Ghana Education Service to do—teaching.
Even in private schools where the school is solely owned by a proprietor as a business entity, the PTAs are even more powerful. Parents are made to pay for all sorts of things including walls to fence the school even though they have no shares in the school.
Most meetings are hijacked by the cronies of the heads who are most often the chairmen of these associations to carry through the ideas of the heads, making believe that those ideas are those of parents.
For boarding schools, meetings are normally held on visiting days, a strategy to get parents to attend. Under duress, parents are made to sit through long hours of meetings while their minds are only centred on one thing—to see their children.
Apart from a few parents who question the impositions on parents, the rest sit and look on, for after all, question or no question it is the PTA chairman, the head of the school and the teachers who win. Sometimes something which is purported to be audited accounts are read out. In that state of mind all the parent wants to do is to get out of the room and see his/her child.
PTAs in some schools have become an avenue for some people to flaunt their wealth as these so called rich men keep proposing new projects without any consideration for the pocket of the less endowed parent.
When is enough supposed to be enough? Is the continuous existence of PTAs a statement on government’s inability to discharge what is clearly one of its constitutional requirements which is the provision of education? Why have successive governments not seen anything wrong with the excesses of PTAs? Let us say PTAs came about as a result of population growth but then what happened to planning to meet such growth?
The responsibility of education delivery in public schools should be that of Government and the role of the PTA should be purely supportive and voluntary, specifically ensuring the welfare of the child in the school.
The slogan of “Government cannot do it alone” is allowing Government to get away from its responsibilities of providing what the tax payers money is supposed to be used for.
So now we buy our own electricity poles, create our own water companies in our homes by digging our own bore holes, buy our own street lights, maintain the roads that lead to our communities and provide our own neighborhood security.
So what does the government provide for us to justify our continuous payment of taxes?
What happens to the many projects that parents contribute to building or providing after their children have left the schools when they are not shareholders of the school? No dividends?
The intention of running away from the high cost of private schools is often defeated by these associations which prefer to call themselves PTAs. Parents are already burdened with providing food, clothing and shelter for their children outside the school environment and their situation must not be compounded by the activities of these so called PTAs.
Certainly education is too important to be toyed with to the extent that even classroom blocks should be left on the shoulders of parents to build.
This trend of events must stop and PTAs must be called to order. They must be regulated in some way.
Alternatively, the government should come out openly to ask parents to pay for the facilities that they are unable to provide in the public schools. Payment for facilities which the Government is not providing “because the Government cannot do it alone” should be added officially to the school fees so that parents could plan and there will also be some transparency.
The PTA as it operates now is an otherwise brilliant idea that has been high jacked by a few to fleece already over burdened parents. This should not be allowed to go on. And that is why I could not help but agree with a parent who referred to it as the devil!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Food vendors and our health
By Doreen Hammond
I have not gone near my favourite, goat meat for days now. Goat khebab used to be a delicacy for me especially, when it is spiced with pepper, and that groundnut powder mix with slices of onions.
The smoke that usually engulfed me as I stood and pointed at those I wanted was never a deterrent. Neither the look of the sharp knife used by the seller to cut the meat up in pieces as I waited impatiently to put some in my mouth was nor the fact that the khebab seller touched my khebab with bare hands as he served me.
But alas, as the saying goes koloo ko ye dwaa mli ni moo oso , translated from Ga—there is an animal in the bush that catches the fox!
The floods which caused havoc to lives and property in Accra and specifically the Kwame Nkrumah Circle – Odawna areas on October 25 , also touched animals. When the storm was over, many sheep and goats lay dead. As people began to salvage the few things left and to dry out their clothes in every available space, brisk business started – big sheep and goat carcasses were sold for GH¢5 each.
There are many restaurants , chop bars and khebab joints around the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, specifically the Neoplan Station area, and though I cannot prove that the carcasses headed for these places, my imagination has been telling me so many things that is threatening my long time friendship with Khebab.
Not too long ago, I had to end a similar friendship with Hausa koko. I realised that the woman who stayed next door in an uncompleted house as a squatter, without access to potable water , no bath house and toilet was the same woman who sold the hausa koko by the road side—and she prepared the koko under terribly unhygienic conditions.
Unfortunately hers is not an isolated case. Day after day, new food vendors and hawkers appear in all parts of the city . They just put a table in the open or erect a small kiosk where they like and come out with fanciful inscriptions such as Okumtsola fast food and presto they are in business! They sell anything from fufu , banku, fried rice and chicken to waakye , and their patronage is huge.
In addition, fruit hawkers are readily available everywhere to sell. Sliced watermelons, pawpaws and pineapples are hawked in the streets and even on the sun in traffic. Sad thing is that some of these fruits are picked straight from the ground , are not washed and sliced with knives wiped but not cleaned with detergent and water.
The traffic in Accra makes it almost not practical for many workers to cook and take to work as some leave home as early as 4.30a.m.
It is a fact that many people do not cook at home but patronise restaurants , food and fruit vendors as a matter of convenience. How is the individual protected from diseases? How is the individual assured of safe food? How is this extended across the length and breadth of the country?
Who checks such food vendors whether in small or big restaurants or in the open? How many of these food vendors have the blessing of the Metropolitan and Public Health Department (MPHD) of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to sell food?
In addition to this, the operations of most of these food joints have added up to the many illegal structures that litter many parts of Accra. Who is checking this worrisome situation?
The Director of the MPHD of the AMA, Dr S.A. Boateng says the department has found it difficult to determine the number of food vendors there are in the metropolis because “ today they are there as food vendors , tomorrow they are not”.
But according to figures given by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, (FAO), there are 65,000 food vendors in the Accra metropolis.
The department is therefore trying to target 85 per cent of an estimated 65,000 food vendors for health screening which is a mandatory requirement for food handlers/vendors in the metropolis.
The department’s environmental health officers are supposed to go round the metropolis checking food handlers for health certificates which they are given after going through health screening organised by the MPHD in collaboration with the Microbiology Department of the University of Ghana Medical School.
Hitherto, the MPHD allowed food handlers to do the required laboratory tests for worm infestation and typhoid fever at any laboratory of their choice but had to stop because it realised that some of the laboratories in the metropolis were substandard ( unqualified technicians and lack of reagents) and therefore issued unreliable laboratory results.
One of the challenges of the MPHD is that it has only 150 environmental officers to check food handlers when the department needs about 500 of them as recommended by the Ministry of Local Government. This has made the job of the MPHD quite difficult.
The World Health Organisation however recommends one environmental officer for every 700 people. The Accra metropolis has a population of five million people.
According to Dr Boateng, the department also has problems with mobility presented by the lack of transport for its work. He however suggests that some staff could be trained under the National Youth Employment Programme and the National |Service scheme to augment the staff of the MPHD.
For food hawkers like the army of them we see in the streets of Accra, especially in traffic hawking, Dr Boateng says the department does not screen them because it is against the bye-laws of the assembly to hawk food in the streets. The reality however is that these hawkers are on the streets selling and they may be transmitting all sorts of diseases to the innocent consumer. There is therefore the urgent need to either screen them or stop them!
Dr Sylvester Achio, Senior Lecturer, Department of Science Laboratory Technology of the Accra Polytechnic says the risk we stand by patronising foods prepared and sold under unhygienic conditions are many.
He said that apart from the germs/micro-organisms which are likely to settle on foods when exposed to the air and cause diseases, we also need to worry about foods prepared in unhygienic conditions because of dysentery, cholera and other stomach disorders.
He explained that food prepared and bought near stagnant debris or water, toilets and gutters or general insanitary conditions are likely to contain micro-organisms and faecal contaminants like E-Coli especially when the culture of hand washing is absent.
For fruits, Dr Achio explains that when exposed to heat without their outer coating, the biochemical reactions that take place cause faster spoilage because of microbial attacks. Therefore the person who eats such fruits is likely to have health problems.
Dr Achio strongly advocates that both food handlers and consumers maintain basic hygiene including hand washing and covering food and being very particular about the environment in which they cook and buy food from.
Food vendors are serving a very important role in society. They are a savior to many workers who do not have the opportunity of eating at home and give us an option when we do not want to enter the kitchen. We also get to entertain ourselves and socialise at some of these food joints. The government therefore needs to ensure that they do as more good than harm. The situation we have now, doesn’t bode well for our health.
I have not gone near my favourite, goat meat for days now. Goat khebab used to be a delicacy for me especially, when it is spiced with pepper, and that groundnut powder mix with slices of onions.
The smoke that usually engulfed me as I stood and pointed at those I wanted was never a deterrent. Neither the look of the sharp knife used by the seller to cut the meat up in pieces as I waited impatiently to put some in my mouth was nor the fact that the khebab seller touched my khebab with bare hands as he served me.
But alas, as the saying goes koloo ko ye dwaa mli ni moo oso , translated from Ga—there is an animal in the bush that catches the fox!
The floods which caused havoc to lives and property in Accra and specifically the Kwame Nkrumah Circle – Odawna areas on October 25 , also touched animals. When the storm was over, many sheep and goats lay dead. As people began to salvage the few things left and to dry out their clothes in every available space, brisk business started – big sheep and goat carcasses were sold for GH¢5 each.
There are many restaurants , chop bars and khebab joints around the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, specifically the Neoplan Station area, and though I cannot prove that the carcasses headed for these places, my imagination has been telling me so many things that is threatening my long time friendship with Khebab.
Not too long ago, I had to end a similar friendship with Hausa koko. I realised that the woman who stayed next door in an uncompleted house as a squatter, without access to potable water , no bath house and toilet was the same woman who sold the hausa koko by the road side—and she prepared the koko under terribly unhygienic conditions.
Unfortunately hers is not an isolated case. Day after day, new food vendors and hawkers appear in all parts of the city . They just put a table in the open or erect a small kiosk where they like and come out with fanciful inscriptions such as Okumtsola fast food and presto they are in business! They sell anything from fufu , banku, fried rice and chicken to waakye , and their patronage is huge.
In addition, fruit hawkers are readily available everywhere to sell. Sliced watermelons, pawpaws and pineapples are hawked in the streets and even on the sun in traffic. Sad thing is that some of these fruits are picked straight from the ground , are not washed and sliced with knives wiped but not cleaned with detergent and water.
The traffic in Accra makes it almost not practical for many workers to cook and take to work as some leave home as early as 4.30a.m.
It is a fact that many people do not cook at home but patronise restaurants , food and fruit vendors as a matter of convenience. How is the individual protected from diseases? How is the individual assured of safe food? How is this extended across the length and breadth of the country?
Who checks such food vendors whether in small or big restaurants or in the open? How many of these food vendors have the blessing of the Metropolitan and Public Health Department (MPHD) of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to sell food?
In addition to this, the operations of most of these food joints have added up to the many illegal structures that litter many parts of Accra. Who is checking this worrisome situation?
The Director of the MPHD of the AMA, Dr S.A. Boateng says the department has found it difficult to determine the number of food vendors there are in the metropolis because “ today they are there as food vendors , tomorrow they are not”.
But according to figures given by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, (FAO), there are 65,000 food vendors in the Accra metropolis.
The department is therefore trying to target 85 per cent of an estimated 65,000 food vendors for health screening which is a mandatory requirement for food handlers/vendors in the metropolis.
The department’s environmental health officers are supposed to go round the metropolis checking food handlers for health certificates which they are given after going through health screening organised by the MPHD in collaboration with the Microbiology Department of the University of Ghana Medical School.
Hitherto, the MPHD allowed food handlers to do the required laboratory tests for worm infestation and typhoid fever at any laboratory of their choice but had to stop because it realised that some of the laboratories in the metropolis were substandard ( unqualified technicians and lack of reagents) and therefore issued unreliable laboratory results.
One of the challenges of the MPHD is that it has only 150 environmental officers to check food handlers when the department needs about 500 of them as recommended by the Ministry of Local Government. This has made the job of the MPHD quite difficult.
The World Health Organisation however recommends one environmental officer for every 700 people. The Accra metropolis has a population of five million people.
According to Dr Boateng, the department also has problems with mobility presented by the lack of transport for its work. He however suggests that some staff could be trained under the National Youth Employment Programme and the National |Service scheme to augment the staff of the MPHD.
For food hawkers like the army of them we see in the streets of Accra, especially in traffic hawking, Dr Boateng says the department does not screen them because it is against the bye-laws of the assembly to hawk food in the streets. The reality however is that these hawkers are on the streets selling and they may be transmitting all sorts of diseases to the innocent consumer. There is therefore the urgent need to either screen them or stop them!
Dr Sylvester Achio, Senior Lecturer, Department of Science Laboratory Technology of the Accra Polytechnic says the risk we stand by patronising foods prepared and sold under unhygienic conditions are many.
He said that apart from the germs/micro-organisms which are likely to settle on foods when exposed to the air and cause diseases, we also need to worry about foods prepared in unhygienic conditions because of dysentery, cholera and other stomach disorders.
He explained that food prepared and bought near stagnant debris or water, toilets and gutters or general insanitary conditions are likely to contain micro-organisms and faecal contaminants like E-Coli especially when the culture of hand washing is absent.
For fruits, Dr Achio explains that when exposed to heat without their outer coating, the biochemical reactions that take place cause faster spoilage because of microbial attacks. Therefore the person who eats such fruits is likely to have health problems.
Dr Achio strongly advocates that both food handlers and consumers maintain basic hygiene including hand washing and covering food and being very particular about the environment in which they cook and buy food from.
Food vendors are serving a very important role in society. They are a savior to many workers who do not have the opportunity of eating at home and give us an option when we do not want to enter the kitchen. We also get to entertain ourselves and socialise at some of these food joints. The government therefore needs to ensure that they do as more good than harm. The situation we have now, doesn’t bode well for our health.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Guidance and counselling to the rescue
By Doreen Hammond
It took only a glance to recognise my old schoolmate Abonsan. It had been 20 long years and obviously we had both changed. But who in my secondary school in my time could ever forget that face?
He was popular for all the wrong reasons. So from the school administration to the teachers and students, right down to the “kitchen women” to the gate men and vendors on compound, Abonsan was very well known.
We were fascinated by his stylish way of walking as he glided across the compound, half of his body slanted to the ground. His shirt collar perpetually raised and in a pair of trousers, even though the prescribed attire was khaki shorts! He could fight a teacher over a simple request that his shirt should be tucked in. As naïve as we were, we cheered him on.
Abonsan was rarely seen in class. He had no notes. Carrying an exercise book was not fashionable to him, how much more a notebook. He was a nocturnal being, slept in the dormitory during classes hours and came out at night during prep, not to study but to make noise and “collect fans”.
The rumour at the time was that Abonsan’s mother was in the United Kingdom and he would join her as soon as he completed form five. He had no worries. After all he was destined for the Promised Land! Or so we thought.
The picture I was seeing now at Kantamanto was surprising. This was Abonsan at Kantamanto, with two pairs of trousers over his shoulders as he displayed another occasionally to potential customers as they walked by. When we made eye contact again, it took no time for Abonsan to melt into the crowd. It was not as if I had turned up spectacularly better myself or that I was an angel in school but Kantamanto Market? Was that the UK? And who said we needed no education to be in the UK if we wanted to get good employment over there? Or was Abonsan thinking that his mother was going to work to take care of him his entire life?
Obviously Abonsan needed some help in secondary school but who was to give it? Teachers spoke to him but it was mostly a scene of confrontation and sometimes advice and not counselling which he must have needed most.
And there was another classmate of mine, Freeman, who attended all the extra classes on the school compound. His parents ensured that he did because they wanted him to be a surgeon. According to Freeman, his parents were of the view that apart from the prestige associated with the job, he and his family will be miles away from poverty if he became a surgeon. Meanwhile, Freeman’s fear of blood was well known to his mates.
I have not had the opportunity to hear about Freeman and what became of him in the theatre if he was ever able to get there, but all didn’t look good for him even in secondary school. And all pointed at a necessity for guidance and counselling which also involves career guidance.
Guidance and Counselling is the process of helping individuals discover and develop their educational, vocational and psychological potentials.
It is meant to help the individual to achieve an optimal level of personal happiness and social usefulness.
Mrs Josephine G. Pokoo-Aikins, Director of the Guidance and Counselling Unit of the Ghana Education Service, maintains that Guidance and Counselling should start at the basic level because it is the formative years. She sees it as a process and not a one- off thing done only at one stage of a person’s life.
Unfortunately, Guidance and Counselling Units are almost nonexistent in basic schools. In most of them, they only exist in name.
This is a situation that the director finds unacceptable. For her, children at that age pick up certain habits that became very difficult to let go in adult life and that was where guidance and counselling could be of more effective help and not when things have already been ingrained.
Mrs Pokoo-Aikins says it has been very difficult to get Guidance and Counselling Units at the basic school levels because of the lack of accommodation. As she puts it, “even accommodation for classrooms is a problem at the basic level how much more setting aside one for counselling”.
For effective guidance and counselling, there must necessarily be a conducive environment which includes a comfortable place, away from other people’s eyes where children would feel free to express themselves as part of counselling.
Some senior high schools have Guidance and Counselling units but lack professional, trained counsellors. The lack of professionals for the job in some schools also presents a big challenge for the unit.
Mrs Pokoo-Aikins said it had been proven that schools which gave Guidance and Counselling the needed place in their institutions were making headway in ensuring discipline, for instance, and charting the career path of the students.
This was corroborated by the Headmaster of the Okuapemman SHS, Mr Felix Essah-Hienno. He said at that level of education, students were adolescents “and we all know some of the things adolescents can do.”
He said the Guidance and Counselling Unit of the school had a professional counsellor and that had contributed immensely to ensuring discipline at the school, which was purely boarding, with 2,200 students.
He recommends it strongly to other senior high schools.
Fortunately, the Ghana Education Service is looking at a policy formulated by the unit to ensure that the proper thing is done.
Among the issues discussed in the policy is that of professionalism. The policy advocates that coordinators of Guidance and Counselling units in schools should be professionals who have studied the course to the master’s level.
Also, it is proposed that coordinators who are teachers should be given time on the timetable to be able to do effective counselling.
The situation now is that such teachers do equal hours with teachers who only teach.
Mrs Pokoo–Aikins says the Government, and for that matter the GES, was doing its best to put Guidance and Counselling in its proper place for the benefit of students and the society. For instance, three weeks ago she returned from a tour financed by the Government, to all the regions, to meet with coordinators of the various units to review their performance and chart a new course.
Her challenge is that the Government does not have adequate resources to carry on with all that needs to be done in the sector.
She, therefore, appeals to non-governmental organisations for help. Specifically, to sponsor some of the unit’s programmes and provide accommodation in schools for Guidance and Counselling.
For Instance, the unit is proposing the organisation of an essay on drug abuse. The director says this essay will be beneficial because as students write about the subject they find out more and learn about the evil effects of drugs.
She is, therefore, appealing for sponsors for the programme.
But it is not all about education and career. The unit also provides services to churches and even individuals who she says could walk into any of the units in the regions and districts to seek counselling even as working adults.
There were a few other students who behaved like Abonsan in my school. Somehow, they must have realised at a point that they needed to “look sharp” so they combined play with studies at the blind side of others.
They have become teachers, lawyers, engineers and administrators etc--- useful to themselves and society. There may be more Abonsans in our senior high schools and Freemans too. Guidance and Counselling will make a difference in their lives.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
It took only a glance to recognise my old schoolmate Abonsan. It had been 20 long years and obviously we had both changed. But who in my secondary school in my time could ever forget that face?
He was popular for all the wrong reasons. So from the school administration to the teachers and students, right down to the “kitchen women” to the gate men and vendors on compound, Abonsan was very well known.
We were fascinated by his stylish way of walking as he glided across the compound, half of his body slanted to the ground. His shirt collar perpetually raised and in a pair of trousers, even though the prescribed attire was khaki shorts! He could fight a teacher over a simple request that his shirt should be tucked in. As naïve as we were, we cheered him on.
Abonsan was rarely seen in class. He had no notes. Carrying an exercise book was not fashionable to him, how much more a notebook. He was a nocturnal being, slept in the dormitory during classes hours and came out at night during prep, not to study but to make noise and “collect fans”.
The rumour at the time was that Abonsan’s mother was in the United Kingdom and he would join her as soon as he completed form five. He had no worries. After all he was destined for the Promised Land! Or so we thought.
The picture I was seeing now at Kantamanto was surprising. This was Abonsan at Kantamanto, with two pairs of trousers over his shoulders as he displayed another occasionally to potential customers as they walked by. When we made eye contact again, it took no time for Abonsan to melt into the crowd. It was not as if I had turned up spectacularly better myself or that I was an angel in school but Kantamanto Market? Was that the UK? And who said we needed no education to be in the UK if we wanted to get good employment over there? Or was Abonsan thinking that his mother was going to work to take care of him his entire life?
Obviously Abonsan needed some help in secondary school but who was to give it? Teachers spoke to him but it was mostly a scene of confrontation and sometimes advice and not counselling which he must have needed most.
And there was another classmate of mine, Freeman, who attended all the extra classes on the school compound. His parents ensured that he did because they wanted him to be a surgeon. According to Freeman, his parents were of the view that apart from the prestige associated with the job, he and his family will be miles away from poverty if he became a surgeon. Meanwhile, Freeman’s fear of blood was well known to his mates.
I have not had the opportunity to hear about Freeman and what became of him in the theatre if he was ever able to get there, but all didn’t look good for him even in secondary school. And all pointed at a necessity for guidance and counselling which also involves career guidance.
Guidance and Counselling is the process of helping individuals discover and develop their educational, vocational and psychological potentials.
It is meant to help the individual to achieve an optimal level of personal happiness and social usefulness.
Mrs Josephine G. Pokoo-Aikins, Director of the Guidance and Counselling Unit of the Ghana Education Service, maintains that Guidance and Counselling should start at the basic level because it is the formative years. She sees it as a process and not a one- off thing done only at one stage of a person’s life.
Unfortunately, Guidance and Counselling Units are almost nonexistent in basic schools. In most of them, they only exist in name.
This is a situation that the director finds unacceptable. For her, children at that age pick up certain habits that became very difficult to let go in adult life and that was where guidance and counselling could be of more effective help and not when things have already been ingrained.
Mrs Pokoo-Aikins says it has been very difficult to get Guidance and Counselling Units at the basic school levels because of the lack of accommodation. As she puts it, “even accommodation for classrooms is a problem at the basic level how much more setting aside one for counselling”.
For effective guidance and counselling, there must necessarily be a conducive environment which includes a comfortable place, away from other people’s eyes where children would feel free to express themselves as part of counselling.
Some senior high schools have Guidance and Counselling units but lack professional, trained counsellors. The lack of professionals for the job in some schools also presents a big challenge for the unit.
Mrs Pokoo-Aikins said it had been proven that schools which gave Guidance and Counselling the needed place in their institutions were making headway in ensuring discipline, for instance, and charting the career path of the students.
This was corroborated by the Headmaster of the Okuapemman SHS, Mr Felix Essah-Hienno. He said at that level of education, students were adolescents “and we all know some of the things adolescents can do.”
He said the Guidance and Counselling Unit of the school had a professional counsellor and that had contributed immensely to ensuring discipline at the school, which was purely boarding, with 2,200 students.
He recommends it strongly to other senior high schools.
Fortunately, the Ghana Education Service is looking at a policy formulated by the unit to ensure that the proper thing is done.
Among the issues discussed in the policy is that of professionalism. The policy advocates that coordinators of Guidance and Counselling units in schools should be professionals who have studied the course to the master’s level.
Also, it is proposed that coordinators who are teachers should be given time on the timetable to be able to do effective counselling.
The situation now is that such teachers do equal hours with teachers who only teach.
Mrs Pokoo–Aikins says the Government, and for that matter the GES, was doing its best to put Guidance and Counselling in its proper place for the benefit of students and the society. For instance, three weeks ago she returned from a tour financed by the Government, to all the regions, to meet with coordinators of the various units to review their performance and chart a new course.
Her challenge is that the Government does not have adequate resources to carry on with all that needs to be done in the sector.
She, therefore, appeals to non-governmental organisations for help. Specifically, to sponsor some of the unit’s programmes and provide accommodation in schools for Guidance and Counselling.
For Instance, the unit is proposing the organisation of an essay on drug abuse. The director says this essay will be beneficial because as students write about the subject they find out more and learn about the evil effects of drugs.
She is, therefore, appealing for sponsors for the programme.
But it is not all about education and career. The unit also provides services to churches and even individuals who she says could walk into any of the units in the regions and districts to seek counselling even as working adults.
There were a few other students who behaved like Abonsan in my school. Somehow, they must have realised at a point that they needed to “look sharp” so they combined play with studies at the blind side of others.
They have become teachers, lawyers, engineers and administrators etc--- useful to themselves and society. There may be more Abonsans in our senior high schools and Freemans too. Guidance and Counselling will make a difference in their lives.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
I am in love with a Hummer
By Doreen Hammond
The big things in life are fascinating. As children we had big plans and dreams, plans to buy aeroplanes once we saw one in the sky and mansions as we drove past plush mansions in the company of our parents.
Our love for big and expensive things as we grow is not necessarily a bad idea if only these expensive things could be acquired through genuine sweat and toil.
However, it so happens that most of the time, these things are achieved on the back of theft and fraud.
These days, newspaper pages are full of pictures and announcements of wanted people who are accused of defrauding their employers and others. Publications of stories of people we have admired from afar only because of the big things they own, but who are later convicted for drug trafficking are also in the library.
The accountant is aiming at a two-storey house while the accounts clerk wants to put up a three-storey version of the same house. The chief executive is thinking of getting a 6-cylinder vehicle while the general manager is frantically scheming to buy a V8.
Since most of us do not earn enough to support such grandiose acquisitions, we end up dipping our hands into coffers which do not belong to us.
The result invariably is normally constantly looking over the shoulders, dismissal from work, long prison sentences, and sometimes people becoming fugitives of the law.
In the case of some up-and-coming entrepreneurs, this could spell the doom of their otherwise flourishing businesses as they invest capital in the posh cars and mansions to the detriment of their businesses. We seem to have thrown away one of the basic teachings at home: Cut your coat according to your cloth.
Acquiring nice and big things in life is not a crime, but going to lengths to acquire them, sometimes through foul or dubious means, is the issue here.
I have come across friends clutching three of the most expensive phones in vogue, while their rents have remained outstanding for months. Others drive some of the flashiest cars in town while their children’s school fees remain unpaid. Misplaced priorities?
While in the UK recently, my perception about cars changed completely. For instance it took me three days in London to spot a Range Rover Sport. Throughout my two-week stay, I never saw a Hummer or any of those American fuel guzzlers that adorn our streets here in Ghana.
Most of the cars in London, and I’m told, other parts of Europe, are the small cars designed to move people from one place to another. Therefore cars like the Nissan March, Peugeot 106, the Renault Clio, the Morris Minor and such other small vehicles dominate their roads, while we drive the Toyota Sequoia V8, the Infiniti V8, the Nissan Armada, the Escalade and the Hummers. It appears the in thing now is the bigger the car, the richer and more respected the owner.
Is it not ironic that a country which is just wriggling its way out of HIPC and must still carry bowl in hand to our benefactors who we feel more comfortable calling development partners, should show so much affluence and crass pomposity in the midst of our squalor and poverty?
I mean schools under trees, Sodom and Gomorrah, lack of potable drinking water, no toilets in homes, dirty markets, limited access to health facilities, and frequent appeals by mothers in the media for money to enable children undergo surgery in order to live; an indication of a poor social welfare system.
Have we sat down to reflect for once, the dire consequences on us if our donor friends (the real word, not development partners) decide to also invest their wealth in such vain and mundane ventures and forget about us?
This brings to the fore the issue of our choice of cars. What should inform the average Ghanaian in his attempt to choose a car from the market? Must it be a used or new car and what are the factors to consider? (Note that we are looking at the average Ghanaian and not the self- actualised tycoon or big-time businessmen and women whose choice is more or less a statement to announce to society that they have arrived at the top.)
The emphasis is on the average worker who just needs a means of transport to move from one place to another just because of an unreliable public rail and bus transport system.
I asked Mr Francis J. Amegayibor, General Manager (sales) of Silver Star Auto Limited for advice on choosing a car.
“You are better off with a new car”, he thinks.
He buttresses his point with the fact that new cars have the benefit of a warranty, are less problematic and maintenance cost is lower.
Mr Amegayibor says it is necessary to consider maintenance cost and the budget available in making that decision.
He says although used cars can be bought at cheaper prices, they are more accident prone and are more likely to break down.
To him, prestige and social status does not influence his choice of a car, his main concern is durability.
Mr Kwesi Blankson, an exporter of used Korean cars at Achimota does not support the idea of buying a new car in Ghana.
He is of the view it does not make economic sense to invest heavily in a new car because of the nature of our roads which would not make it last. For him, buying a used car and changing it after every five years is a better deal.
Mr Leslie Sackeyfio is a chartered insurer and the owner of a pre-owned Toyota |Corolla which he bought because “I wanted to use a Toyota and the budget could buy a home-used one”.
He said most of the new cars being sold on the market have smaller engines and are not as comfortable as the home-used Toyota.
In making the decision, Mr Sackeyfio had certain specifications in mind. He made sure the car had a fitted audio system to save him the trouble of the system being removed by thieves and also removing the face each time he parks and leaves the car unattended. He prefers an automatic transmission because he has been told that it protects the engine.
Another factor Mr Sackeyfio considered in making his decision is the availability of spare parts. He believes that most of the cars on the market now, even though new, cannot be used extensively over a long time and that the state of the roads on which one drives daily should inform our choice of vehicle.
Above all, he thinks that the cost of maintenance/servicing in spite of extensive use should be compatible with salary and maintenance allowance. Getting a new car is Mr Sackeyfio’s wish but he emphasises “not just any new car”.
It seems that buying a car is akin to choosing a wife and individual choices would continue to vary.
It is true that we earn our own income and can, therefore, decide to spend it anyhow we fancy. But, we should also consider that we live in a society where most people can hardly put food on the table. How about creating the right balance between satisfying our ego and comfort and contributing to the welfare of society?
Like putting a bowl of food on that hungry woman’s table, or giving a token to that little boy who needs just a few cedis to remain in school.
The next time you fall in love with a Hummer or any of those cars whose price can conveniently buy a three-bedroom house, ask yourself: Do I really need this car? Can I fuel and maintain this vehicle? Who am I out to impress? For what shall it profit a man if he sits high up in the sky and looks down at his brother starving to death?
• Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
The big things in life are fascinating. As children we had big plans and dreams, plans to buy aeroplanes once we saw one in the sky and mansions as we drove past plush mansions in the company of our parents.
Our love for big and expensive things as we grow is not necessarily a bad idea if only these expensive things could be acquired through genuine sweat and toil.
However, it so happens that most of the time, these things are achieved on the back of theft and fraud.
These days, newspaper pages are full of pictures and announcements of wanted people who are accused of defrauding their employers and others. Publications of stories of people we have admired from afar only because of the big things they own, but who are later convicted for drug trafficking are also in the library.
The accountant is aiming at a two-storey house while the accounts clerk wants to put up a three-storey version of the same house. The chief executive is thinking of getting a 6-cylinder vehicle while the general manager is frantically scheming to buy a V8.
Since most of us do not earn enough to support such grandiose acquisitions, we end up dipping our hands into coffers which do not belong to us.
The result invariably is normally constantly looking over the shoulders, dismissal from work, long prison sentences, and sometimes people becoming fugitives of the law.
In the case of some up-and-coming entrepreneurs, this could spell the doom of their otherwise flourishing businesses as they invest capital in the posh cars and mansions to the detriment of their businesses. We seem to have thrown away one of the basic teachings at home: Cut your coat according to your cloth.
Acquiring nice and big things in life is not a crime, but going to lengths to acquire them, sometimes through foul or dubious means, is the issue here.
I have come across friends clutching three of the most expensive phones in vogue, while their rents have remained outstanding for months. Others drive some of the flashiest cars in town while their children’s school fees remain unpaid. Misplaced priorities?
While in the UK recently, my perception about cars changed completely. For instance it took me three days in London to spot a Range Rover Sport. Throughout my two-week stay, I never saw a Hummer or any of those American fuel guzzlers that adorn our streets here in Ghana.
Most of the cars in London, and I’m told, other parts of Europe, are the small cars designed to move people from one place to another. Therefore cars like the Nissan March, Peugeot 106, the Renault Clio, the Morris Minor and such other small vehicles dominate their roads, while we drive the Toyota Sequoia V8, the Infiniti V8, the Nissan Armada, the Escalade and the Hummers. It appears the in thing now is the bigger the car, the richer and more respected the owner.
Is it not ironic that a country which is just wriggling its way out of HIPC and must still carry bowl in hand to our benefactors who we feel more comfortable calling development partners, should show so much affluence and crass pomposity in the midst of our squalor and poverty?
I mean schools under trees, Sodom and Gomorrah, lack of potable drinking water, no toilets in homes, dirty markets, limited access to health facilities, and frequent appeals by mothers in the media for money to enable children undergo surgery in order to live; an indication of a poor social welfare system.
Have we sat down to reflect for once, the dire consequences on us if our donor friends (the real word, not development partners) decide to also invest their wealth in such vain and mundane ventures and forget about us?
This brings to the fore the issue of our choice of cars. What should inform the average Ghanaian in his attempt to choose a car from the market? Must it be a used or new car and what are the factors to consider? (Note that we are looking at the average Ghanaian and not the self- actualised tycoon or big-time businessmen and women whose choice is more or less a statement to announce to society that they have arrived at the top.)
The emphasis is on the average worker who just needs a means of transport to move from one place to another just because of an unreliable public rail and bus transport system.
I asked Mr Francis J. Amegayibor, General Manager (sales) of Silver Star Auto Limited for advice on choosing a car.
“You are better off with a new car”, he thinks.
He buttresses his point with the fact that new cars have the benefit of a warranty, are less problematic and maintenance cost is lower.
Mr Amegayibor says it is necessary to consider maintenance cost and the budget available in making that decision.
He says although used cars can be bought at cheaper prices, they are more accident prone and are more likely to break down.
To him, prestige and social status does not influence his choice of a car, his main concern is durability.
Mr Kwesi Blankson, an exporter of used Korean cars at Achimota does not support the idea of buying a new car in Ghana.
He is of the view it does not make economic sense to invest heavily in a new car because of the nature of our roads which would not make it last. For him, buying a used car and changing it after every five years is a better deal.
Mr Leslie Sackeyfio is a chartered insurer and the owner of a pre-owned Toyota |Corolla which he bought because “I wanted to use a Toyota and the budget could buy a home-used one”.
He said most of the new cars being sold on the market have smaller engines and are not as comfortable as the home-used Toyota.
In making the decision, Mr Sackeyfio had certain specifications in mind. He made sure the car had a fitted audio system to save him the trouble of the system being removed by thieves and also removing the face each time he parks and leaves the car unattended. He prefers an automatic transmission because he has been told that it protects the engine.
Another factor Mr Sackeyfio considered in making his decision is the availability of spare parts. He believes that most of the cars on the market now, even though new, cannot be used extensively over a long time and that the state of the roads on which one drives daily should inform our choice of vehicle.
Above all, he thinks that the cost of maintenance/servicing in spite of extensive use should be compatible with salary and maintenance allowance. Getting a new car is Mr Sackeyfio’s wish but he emphasises “not just any new car”.
It seems that buying a car is akin to choosing a wife and individual choices would continue to vary.
It is true that we earn our own income and can, therefore, decide to spend it anyhow we fancy. But, we should also consider that we live in a society where most people can hardly put food on the table. How about creating the right balance between satisfying our ego and comfort and contributing to the welfare of society?
Like putting a bowl of food on that hungry woman’s table, or giving a token to that little boy who needs just a few cedis to remain in school.
The next time you fall in love with a Hummer or any of those cars whose price can conveniently buy a three-bedroom house, ask yourself: Do I really need this car? Can I fuel and maintain this vehicle? Who am I out to impress? For what shall it profit a man if he sits high up in the sky and looks down at his brother starving to death?
• Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
Friday, October 14, 2011
A case of two chickens
By Doreen Hammond
In the freezer of a supermarket are stocked two different kinds of chicken. One is well packaged, with the name of the country and farm of origin, among other important information required by the consumer, boldly written on it. It is well labelled with expiry date, weight, nutritional values and an indication that it is a broiler.
Next to it is the other chicken, just in a polythene bag that is tied at the end, with no information on it. In order to know about it I had to ask the sales girl, who replied, “It is local”.
My additional enquiries about expiry date, nutritional values and weight yielded the response, “It was brought in only three days ago”. But from which farm, she did not know. For prices, the well-packaged imported chicken was GH¢10.00 while the locally manufactured one with no information went for GH¢15.00.
On the shelves of the supermarket were different kinds of products from different countries. That was expected because ours is a country which encourages free trade and manufactures little.
There were different kinds of bottled drinks. Among them was one with colourful pictures of something that looked like fruits, with a label that had the printing so tiny it would take a witch to read.
It had a Ghana Standards Board mark though and expiry date marked with a ball point pen, two mobile phone numbers, also scribbled with pen but no manufacturer’s address. The bottle had a cover but once you held it up, the drink started spilling.
This scenario generally replicates itself in almost anything one can think of — from textiles to shoes to plastic items to food products. Yet as Ghanaians, we are supposed to patronise made-in-Ghana products.
Our attempt to encourage the wearing of made-in-Ghana clothes, known as batik and tie and dye, suffered a setback. Although it caught on so well and was so much patronised, it seemed we were all wearing uniforms because of the lack of variety. This coupled with the fabric being named after CK Mann’s popular song Adwoa Yankee has since caused some loss in patronage.
Somehow, most of our local seamstresses and tailors who sew at affordable prices don’t seem to get it right; you may have darts above the breast, kissing pockets behind your trousers, sleeves so long past the arm and lapels as large as elephant ears.
The sad thing is, the customer has to go to and fro the tailor’s shop because collection time is never adhered to. Many a customer has been sent home by such seamstresses and tailors in tears with clothing which made them look like masqueraders and wondering whose measurements were used for them — Money down the drain, no customer satisfaction, no redress.
Give a Ghanaian carpenter an order for furniture, even a similar one you have seen at his shop, and see what happens. Either he makes something different for you or he takes part of the money to buy materials for the job and starts playing hide and seek with you. First, he will say he has not been well and then you don’t see him at the shop for a while but picks your call and then he moves on to not picking calls from you at all. Until you do something drastic, that may be the end of that furniture you ordered and your money.
Talking about standards; do we have standards at all? If we did, why would a tourist see an elephant carving, place an order for two of the same thing only to go for his order and one looks more like a deer than the elephant he ordered? The lackadaisical attitude of our artisans to work makes it very difficult to deal with them and trust them.
In spite of our attempts as a country to encourage the use of locally made goods/products, there have been a number of challenges. Our challenges have been with packaging, pricing, maintaining a standard quality and therefore confidence in the product, and our attitude to work. Apart from some who may (in some cases erroneously) think that everything imported or foreign is better than the locally made, others who would prefer locally made goods are frustrated by these problems.
Studies have shown that packaging plays a very important role in moving consumers to buy a product. It even advertises the product. Well-packaged items give the potential consumer a sense of quality. Poorly packaged items suggest the quality of the product itself may be suspect. How can you, for instance, convince yourself that the ground red pepper (cayenne) that you have bought from the market only tied in a polythene bag has not been mixed with the seed of avocado just to maximise profit?
The importance of packaging is well understood by a few companies like Blue Skies, Neat fufu, Darko Farms and Nkulenu, but the general situation doesn’t look good. Buy a pack of a certain Ghanaian-made biscuit and find yourself struggling for minutes trying to open the wrap in order to get a bite.
You take the foreign one, spot the clearly marked “where to open”, spot the red thread and save yourself the trouble; secure yet easy to open.
Buy a pack of plantain chips and risk being pricked by staple pins! That is the ingenious way the manufacturer has chosen to seal the pack.
Pricing also plays a major role in influencing patronage of locally made products as far as the competition is concerned. The consumer may be so in love with locally made goods but would your purse allow you to stand by a well-packaged chicken at GH¢10 and still pick the locally made one for GH¢15.00 just because you are a Ghanaian and you want your compatriot to make some money?
Why should we be complaining that Ghanaians are buying imported chicken and not the locally produced ones? Who would not prefer a well-packed, fresh juicy moderate chicken to an imported one? But is that what we see in our shops?
The local industries have been genuinely complaining for years about lack of access to credit, high interest rates, lack of Government subsidies and unfair competition from heavily subsidised imports. These are genuine complaints which require prompt redress for the promotion of local industries and therefore our economy.
But what are the industries also doing for themselves? What are they doing to change the little things like their attitude to work and the inherent waste within most of our production chain, which is not a matter of Government policy? How serious have they been with delivering on time and gaining the trust of customers? Why would they manufacture something locally and give it a foreign label or just pack an imported product in a pack and put their label on it? Is it the issue of not believing in what they produce?
What is insulting to the Ghanaian consumer is that in most cases products for export are treated differently to meet international standards while those for local consumption are treated with contempt.
When it comes to advertising to create awareness and sustain interest in products, there is aggressive advertising of foreign imports while most of our local manufacturers just pray and fast over their products and expect that they will be bought.
Just tune in to any of our Television stations and witness the aggressive advertising on imported rice and even Indomie, while most people have no idea where to buy local rice, even if one decided to do so for nationalism sake, in spite of the stones/pellets in it and all.
We may love Made-in-Ghana goods to bits and may be very patriotic but how far are we, as consumers and customers, ready to go with that love in the face of the poor quality of most of our locally made products and the availability of cheaper, higher quality alternatives?
Can’t the same authorities who keep appealing to us to patronise our home-made goods, in a similar measure impress on our local manufacturers the need to show a modicum of respect to us by manufacturing to some basic quality and standards? After all, our elders say : when you advise the cat you must advise the stinking fish also.
The Americans love their Ford just as much as the Japanese love their Toyota because at the end of the day they get quality for their money.
The bottom line is: It is good to patronise locally made goods on condition that they can compete with foreign ones in terms of quality, price and packaging. For at the end of the day, it all boils down to getting value for ones money and that is where patriotism should end.
We may argue that “small, small we will get there”, but what efforts are we making to get there? And is fifty something years not enough to get to any destination, even if we were crawling? In any case our competitors will not stop and wait for us!
Spending hard-earned money on any commodity whose only value is that it was manufactured by an indigene while it lacks quality and aesthetic value would be taking patriotism a bit too far and taflatse, crossing over to the land of no reason.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
In the freezer of a supermarket are stocked two different kinds of chicken. One is well packaged, with the name of the country and farm of origin, among other important information required by the consumer, boldly written on it. It is well labelled with expiry date, weight, nutritional values and an indication that it is a broiler.
Next to it is the other chicken, just in a polythene bag that is tied at the end, with no information on it. In order to know about it I had to ask the sales girl, who replied, “It is local”.
My additional enquiries about expiry date, nutritional values and weight yielded the response, “It was brought in only three days ago”. But from which farm, she did not know. For prices, the well-packaged imported chicken was GH¢10.00 while the locally manufactured one with no information went for GH¢15.00.
On the shelves of the supermarket were different kinds of products from different countries. That was expected because ours is a country which encourages free trade and manufactures little.
There were different kinds of bottled drinks. Among them was one with colourful pictures of something that looked like fruits, with a label that had the printing so tiny it would take a witch to read.
It had a Ghana Standards Board mark though and expiry date marked with a ball point pen, two mobile phone numbers, also scribbled with pen but no manufacturer’s address. The bottle had a cover but once you held it up, the drink started spilling.
This scenario generally replicates itself in almost anything one can think of — from textiles to shoes to plastic items to food products. Yet as Ghanaians, we are supposed to patronise made-in-Ghana products.
Our attempt to encourage the wearing of made-in-Ghana clothes, known as batik and tie and dye, suffered a setback. Although it caught on so well and was so much patronised, it seemed we were all wearing uniforms because of the lack of variety. This coupled with the fabric being named after CK Mann’s popular song Adwoa Yankee has since caused some loss in patronage.
Somehow, most of our local seamstresses and tailors who sew at affordable prices don’t seem to get it right; you may have darts above the breast, kissing pockets behind your trousers, sleeves so long past the arm and lapels as large as elephant ears.
The sad thing is, the customer has to go to and fro the tailor’s shop because collection time is never adhered to. Many a customer has been sent home by such seamstresses and tailors in tears with clothing which made them look like masqueraders and wondering whose measurements were used for them — Money down the drain, no customer satisfaction, no redress.
Give a Ghanaian carpenter an order for furniture, even a similar one you have seen at his shop, and see what happens. Either he makes something different for you or he takes part of the money to buy materials for the job and starts playing hide and seek with you. First, he will say he has not been well and then you don’t see him at the shop for a while but picks your call and then he moves on to not picking calls from you at all. Until you do something drastic, that may be the end of that furniture you ordered and your money.
Talking about standards; do we have standards at all? If we did, why would a tourist see an elephant carving, place an order for two of the same thing only to go for his order and one looks more like a deer than the elephant he ordered? The lackadaisical attitude of our artisans to work makes it very difficult to deal with them and trust them.
In spite of our attempts as a country to encourage the use of locally made goods/products, there have been a number of challenges. Our challenges have been with packaging, pricing, maintaining a standard quality and therefore confidence in the product, and our attitude to work. Apart from some who may (in some cases erroneously) think that everything imported or foreign is better than the locally made, others who would prefer locally made goods are frustrated by these problems.
Studies have shown that packaging plays a very important role in moving consumers to buy a product. It even advertises the product. Well-packaged items give the potential consumer a sense of quality. Poorly packaged items suggest the quality of the product itself may be suspect. How can you, for instance, convince yourself that the ground red pepper (cayenne) that you have bought from the market only tied in a polythene bag has not been mixed with the seed of avocado just to maximise profit?
The importance of packaging is well understood by a few companies like Blue Skies, Neat fufu, Darko Farms and Nkulenu, but the general situation doesn’t look good. Buy a pack of a certain Ghanaian-made biscuit and find yourself struggling for minutes trying to open the wrap in order to get a bite.
You take the foreign one, spot the clearly marked “where to open”, spot the red thread and save yourself the trouble; secure yet easy to open.
Buy a pack of plantain chips and risk being pricked by staple pins! That is the ingenious way the manufacturer has chosen to seal the pack.
Pricing also plays a major role in influencing patronage of locally made products as far as the competition is concerned. The consumer may be so in love with locally made goods but would your purse allow you to stand by a well-packaged chicken at GH¢10 and still pick the locally made one for GH¢15.00 just because you are a Ghanaian and you want your compatriot to make some money?
Why should we be complaining that Ghanaians are buying imported chicken and not the locally produced ones? Who would not prefer a well-packed, fresh juicy moderate chicken to an imported one? But is that what we see in our shops?
The local industries have been genuinely complaining for years about lack of access to credit, high interest rates, lack of Government subsidies and unfair competition from heavily subsidised imports. These are genuine complaints which require prompt redress for the promotion of local industries and therefore our economy.
But what are the industries also doing for themselves? What are they doing to change the little things like their attitude to work and the inherent waste within most of our production chain, which is not a matter of Government policy? How serious have they been with delivering on time and gaining the trust of customers? Why would they manufacture something locally and give it a foreign label or just pack an imported product in a pack and put their label on it? Is it the issue of not believing in what they produce?
What is insulting to the Ghanaian consumer is that in most cases products for export are treated differently to meet international standards while those for local consumption are treated with contempt.
When it comes to advertising to create awareness and sustain interest in products, there is aggressive advertising of foreign imports while most of our local manufacturers just pray and fast over their products and expect that they will be bought.
Just tune in to any of our Television stations and witness the aggressive advertising on imported rice and even Indomie, while most people have no idea where to buy local rice, even if one decided to do so for nationalism sake, in spite of the stones/pellets in it and all.
We may love Made-in-Ghana goods to bits and may be very patriotic but how far are we, as consumers and customers, ready to go with that love in the face of the poor quality of most of our locally made products and the availability of cheaper, higher quality alternatives?
Can’t the same authorities who keep appealing to us to patronise our home-made goods, in a similar measure impress on our local manufacturers the need to show a modicum of respect to us by manufacturing to some basic quality and standards? After all, our elders say : when you advise the cat you must advise the stinking fish also.
The Americans love their Ford just as much as the Japanese love their Toyota because at the end of the day they get quality for their money.
The bottom line is: It is good to patronise locally made goods on condition that they can compete with foreign ones in terms of quality, price and packaging. For at the end of the day, it all boils down to getting value for ones money and that is where patriotism should end.
We may argue that “small, small we will get there”, but what efforts are we making to get there? And is fifty something years not enough to get to any destination, even if we were crawling? In any case our competitors will not stop and wait for us!
Spending hard-earned money on any commodity whose only value is that it was manufactured by an indigene while it lacks quality and aesthetic value would be taking patriotism a bit too far and taflatse, crossing over to the land of no reason.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Ghana: Gateway or dumping ground?
By Doreen Hammond
The Ghanaian is fascinated by appellations. This is no secret. So everybody is a Togbe, Nana, Nii or Agyeman. This may be without recourse to the fact that the person has not done anything for even his immediate community, not to talk of town.
Perhaps the only group of people whose penchant for appellations surpasses that of the Ghanaian is the Nigerian. It is only in Nigeria that one person could be addressed as Professor, Dr Dr Engineer Lawyer Chief. No wonder we are not only neighbours but also cousins and we are learning a lot from each other.
Our love for appellations transcends the individual to the national. Hence we have Ghana being first in so many things. First Black African country south of the Sahara to win independence, first to declare HIPC and now Gateway to the continent Africa.
Not that it hurts anybody if we decide to indulge ourselves in this unnecessary game of naming ourselves as almost the best in everything even if the reality is different.
The story is told of how the Nigerians quickly dubbed their country as the destination in apparent response to Ghana’s claim of being the gateway. Of course it is all part of the banters we must engage in despite our dire poverty and seemingly hopeless circumstances. As the saying goes, yesu koraa ye gyae hem; even as we weep we pause occasionally to blow our noses.
But the issue of dumping of all manner of goods in our country under the guise of free trade or if you like liberalisation is certainly not a laughing matter.
Though it may be difficult to put a date on when the practice of importing used foreign products into the country started, the practice gained currency in the 1990s and has continued in earnest until date.
The typical Ghanaian, never in short supply of humour, euphemistically refers to such goods as Eurocarcass, the short form of European carcass. For clothing, the name is obroni wawu, literally meaning the white man is dead.
The goods are imported from anywhere one can think of with Korea now being a major supplier even though it started mostly with our European and American friends.
The type of items imported varies. They range from sound systems, television sets, fridges, wheelchairs, books, clothing, toys, rags, cooking utensils, footwear to chamber pots. It is quite difficult to understand why we have gone to the extent of buying and using a pre- owned chamber pot !
In recent years, electronic gadgets like computers and their accessories have come to form a major part of these imports.
The health implications for using used underwear and other personal clothing have been highlighted over the period, leading to a supposed ban on this category of imports. As to whether the ban is being effected is a question we all need to address as a people, though on my last visit to Kantamanto a week ago, I saw these items including panties boldly displayed for sale.
Another type of goods whose continuous dumping on us has a serious and negative impact are used fridges, air conditioners, microwave ovens and television sets.
What is compounding the problem is that in the host country, these things are considered unfit for use and hazardous to health and disposal is a problem. Hence, the prospective buyer is not left with a choice as to selecting the good ones and leaving the rest.
So the typical Ghanaian importer goes for a 40- footer container full of television sets and fridges and after it has been cleared at the port, he opens the container to find that about 50 per cent of the items are not useable.
While he may have helped the German, the Italian and the Koreans to clear their borla (garbage), all that he would have done to us would have been compounding our already precarious waste disposal problems and adding on the attendant environmental problems.
According to documents provided by Mrs Angelina Tutuah-Mensah, Deputy Director of Public Affairs of the Environmental Protection Agency, on ozone layer protection, emissions from these items like refrigerators etc. affect the environment adversely. Such emissions contain substances containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) which contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer.
Some of them have been discarded from their places of origin because they contain CFCs which are commonly used as coolants. Because of the harmful effects of CFCs to the environment, they are being phased out.
The EPA document advises that we should buy fridges which are ozone friendly and that we should pay attention to the manufacturers information needed to make a wise choice. But is that what we are doing?
Hardi is a used refrigerator importer in Taifa. He says that when his container of fridges arrives, he sells the bulk of them untested, that way prices are very affordable. However, after the bulk has been bought, he now calls in a fridge repairer to test and repair those which are not working. He sells those which are unserviceable to fridge repairers who remove parts to service customer’s fridges. What eventually happens to the unserviceable is outside his purview.
For Hardi, CFCs are no consideration in his importation business and sales.
Mr Eric Nyefre, a waiter and a proud owner of a pre-owned fridge and television set says that his only reason for buying those pre-owned items was price. He explains that he could not afford to buy a new fridge and television set though he would have preferred to do so.
While a used table-top fridge goes for about GH¢150, the new one sells for about GH¢ 400.
The high energy consumption of most of these items coupled with their relatively shorter lifespan makes these second-hand goods not cost-effective in the long term.
The government, through Ghana’s Energy Commission, the regulator of the energy sector recently announced that from January 1, 2013, it will completely ban used refrigerators and air-conditioners from coming into the country.
The Executive Secretary of the Energy Commission, Dr. Alfred Ofosu Ahenkorah, who made the announcement said used television sets and electric irons would also be banned from the country. For the Energy Commission, its concern is electronic waste and high energy consumption by some of these used electronic gadgets.
Though there are plans to ban these things in the future, what prevents us from making the ban effective now? We should not lose sight of the fact that the impact of these hazardous waste cannot be postponed till a later date and that is the more reason the sooner the ban and its enforcement, the better.
Apart from the health and environmental implications, it is also an eye sore to see disused fridges etc packed in front of shops along our roads.
Though there may be a few reasons justifying the importation of these things like the relative cheapness which has made it possible for most people within the low-income bracket to own their own TV sets and fridges, the overwhelming negative impact on our health and environment should inform our decision.
To the importer, once he is making the big bucks, he might not be bothered about environmental and health issues but that is why governments exist to provide protection and security for the citizenry. And this includes protection from avoidable diseases and a sound and healthy environment.
We may be a gateway but that does not mean we should be a dumping ground. We should close our gates to garbage, especially those that will eventually kill us.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
The Ghanaian is fascinated by appellations. This is no secret. So everybody is a Togbe, Nana, Nii or Agyeman. This may be without recourse to the fact that the person has not done anything for even his immediate community, not to talk of town.
Perhaps the only group of people whose penchant for appellations surpasses that of the Ghanaian is the Nigerian. It is only in Nigeria that one person could be addressed as Professor, Dr Dr Engineer Lawyer Chief. No wonder we are not only neighbours but also cousins and we are learning a lot from each other.
Our love for appellations transcends the individual to the national. Hence we have Ghana being first in so many things. First Black African country south of the Sahara to win independence, first to declare HIPC and now Gateway to the continent Africa.
Not that it hurts anybody if we decide to indulge ourselves in this unnecessary game of naming ourselves as almost the best in everything even if the reality is different.
The story is told of how the Nigerians quickly dubbed their country as the destination in apparent response to Ghana’s claim of being the gateway. Of course it is all part of the banters we must engage in despite our dire poverty and seemingly hopeless circumstances. As the saying goes, yesu koraa ye gyae hem; even as we weep we pause occasionally to blow our noses.
But the issue of dumping of all manner of goods in our country under the guise of free trade or if you like liberalisation is certainly not a laughing matter.
Though it may be difficult to put a date on when the practice of importing used foreign products into the country started, the practice gained currency in the 1990s and has continued in earnest until date.
The typical Ghanaian, never in short supply of humour, euphemistically refers to such goods as Eurocarcass, the short form of European carcass. For clothing, the name is obroni wawu, literally meaning the white man is dead.
The goods are imported from anywhere one can think of with Korea now being a major supplier even though it started mostly with our European and American friends.
The type of items imported varies. They range from sound systems, television sets, fridges, wheelchairs, books, clothing, toys, rags, cooking utensils, footwear to chamber pots. It is quite difficult to understand why we have gone to the extent of buying and using a pre- owned chamber pot !
In recent years, electronic gadgets like computers and their accessories have come to form a major part of these imports.
The health implications for using used underwear and other personal clothing have been highlighted over the period, leading to a supposed ban on this category of imports. As to whether the ban is being effected is a question we all need to address as a people, though on my last visit to Kantamanto a week ago, I saw these items including panties boldly displayed for sale.
Another type of goods whose continuous dumping on us has a serious and negative impact are used fridges, air conditioners, microwave ovens and television sets.
What is compounding the problem is that in the host country, these things are considered unfit for use and hazardous to health and disposal is a problem. Hence, the prospective buyer is not left with a choice as to selecting the good ones and leaving the rest.
So the typical Ghanaian importer goes for a 40- footer container full of television sets and fridges and after it has been cleared at the port, he opens the container to find that about 50 per cent of the items are not useable.
While he may have helped the German, the Italian and the Koreans to clear their borla (garbage), all that he would have done to us would have been compounding our already precarious waste disposal problems and adding on the attendant environmental problems.
According to documents provided by Mrs Angelina Tutuah-Mensah, Deputy Director of Public Affairs of the Environmental Protection Agency, on ozone layer protection, emissions from these items like refrigerators etc. affect the environment adversely. Such emissions contain substances containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) which contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer.
Some of them have been discarded from their places of origin because they contain CFCs which are commonly used as coolants. Because of the harmful effects of CFCs to the environment, they are being phased out.
The EPA document advises that we should buy fridges which are ozone friendly and that we should pay attention to the manufacturers information needed to make a wise choice. But is that what we are doing?
Hardi is a used refrigerator importer in Taifa. He says that when his container of fridges arrives, he sells the bulk of them untested, that way prices are very affordable. However, after the bulk has been bought, he now calls in a fridge repairer to test and repair those which are not working. He sells those which are unserviceable to fridge repairers who remove parts to service customer’s fridges. What eventually happens to the unserviceable is outside his purview.
For Hardi, CFCs are no consideration in his importation business and sales.
Mr Eric Nyefre, a waiter and a proud owner of a pre-owned fridge and television set says that his only reason for buying those pre-owned items was price. He explains that he could not afford to buy a new fridge and television set though he would have preferred to do so.
While a used table-top fridge goes for about GH¢150, the new one sells for about GH¢ 400.
The high energy consumption of most of these items coupled with their relatively shorter lifespan makes these second-hand goods not cost-effective in the long term.
The government, through Ghana’s Energy Commission, the regulator of the energy sector recently announced that from January 1, 2013, it will completely ban used refrigerators and air-conditioners from coming into the country.
The Executive Secretary of the Energy Commission, Dr. Alfred Ofosu Ahenkorah, who made the announcement said used television sets and electric irons would also be banned from the country. For the Energy Commission, its concern is electronic waste and high energy consumption by some of these used electronic gadgets.
Though there are plans to ban these things in the future, what prevents us from making the ban effective now? We should not lose sight of the fact that the impact of these hazardous waste cannot be postponed till a later date and that is the more reason the sooner the ban and its enforcement, the better.
Apart from the health and environmental implications, it is also an eye sore to see disused fridges etc packed in front of shops along our roads.
Though there may be a few reasons justifying the importation of these things like the relative cheapness which has made it possible for most people within the low-income bracket to own their own TV sets and fridges, the overwhelming negative impact on our health and environment should inform our decision.
To the importer, once he is making the big bucks, he might not be bothered about environmental and health issues but that is why governments exist to provide protection and security for the citizenry. And this includes protection from avoidable diseases and a sound and healthy environment.
We may be a gateway but that does not mean we should be a dumping ground. We should close our gates to garbage, especially those that will eventually kill us.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
Friday, September 16, 2011
Our friend the mortuary man
Our Friend The Mortuary Man
A group of 10 mourners stood at the gate of the mortuary where they had gone to check whether the body of their beloved “was being kept well”.
They had been waiting for the mortuary man for a while and were getting impatient but could not leave because their mission had not been accomplished. The mourners had learnt that if you do not “see” the mortuary man, the body of your beloved will not get good treatment. So they waited.
When the mortuary man finally emerged, removed his gloves and stretched out his hand to greet them, they pretended that they had not seen his hand and started looking at the trees around. He was used to that behaviour and ignored what normally would be regarded as rude.
Rather the mortuary man assured them that everything was okay. When he invited them to come in and see their beloved for themselves, only two of the mourners gathered the courage to do so! Fear had grabbed the legs of the other eight; They'd rather not see the body.
One vocation in our society which seems so steeped in mystery is the work of the mortuary man. Though very little is known about the work of this special group of people, several stories are told about their mystical powers. Some even claim that they talk to the dead and that in some cases where the souls of the dead refuse to be at rest, chants from the mortuary man calms them down!
The general perception about the mortuary man seems to be borne out of our fear and or reverence for the dead. It is related to the thought that anyone who touches and does things with the dead must not be entertained by the living. With this kind of thinking it is only logical to conclude that any group of persons dealing with the dead on a daily basis must possess supernatural powers in equal measure, if not more.
Mortuary men are, therefore, people we do not like to go too close to; we would rather admire them from a distance. The mere sight of these health workers sends shivers down the spines of many and it is usually an experience most people would rather pray passes over them like the biblical cup in the case of the Christ.
But the world being what it is; death is part of life. It happens that once in a while, whether we like it or not, we come face to face with the mortuary man at the loss of a relation.
It is during these times that the mortuary man, who is always at the fringes of society, calls the shots and throws his weight about in the presence of the rich and powerful. After all, he is performing an important job which few people would dare to do.
Strongman is the name of a popular mortuary man at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital's mortuary in Accra. He has been doing this job since he was 30. At 56 now, his job description has been to remove bodies for post mortem to the theatre and for embalmment, pack bodies into the fridges, pick up bodies from the wards to the morgue and cleaning.
Very well built in stature, Strongman used to be a fisherman but when fishing was not putting adequate food on his table, he left to work as a porter at the then Ghana Food Distribution Corporation . He says his job as a porter was also not too rewarding financially, so when his sister got him the job as a mortuary man, he obliged.
Before he started working in the mortuary, Strongman had heard tales of how such workers use some spiritual powers but for him, “I only do this job with the help of God”. He said that contrary to the notion that mortuary men had to drink a lot of alcohol in order to do the job, he was an occasional drinker and does not drink because of the job.
His family does not treat him differently from other members but “sometimes it is rather some outsiders who shun me”. He likes his job, teaches others to do it by apprenticeship but says the salary is not encouraging at all.
Mr Alex Moffatt who has been doing the job of a prosector at the same mortuary for 22 years is a middle school form four leaver. He was trained on the job to open up bodies for pathologists to do the post mortem. After that he puts the organs back into the bodies and stitches them up.
He also started the job in the morgue as a cleaner, became a mortuary attendant and then a mortuary man before his transfer to the theatre to work as a prosector. Mr Moffatt, who is also a pastor at the Christian Forces Church in Mamprobi is happy with his job because he believes “God wants me to learn something”.
But he is not satisfied with the salary which he puts at about GH ¢300 a month in spite of the risks involved. He talks about occasional cuts from the surgical blade, pricks from the needle during work and susceptibility to diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and cholera. In spite of these, the government pays them no risk allowance. His hope was that the Single Spine Salary Structure would address these concerns, but so far there have been no signs of such redress.
Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, a Pathologist, explains that mortuary men include those category of staff trained as prosectors to open up bodies for post-mortem examination.
They have been trained on the job in the different ways to open the bodies, dependent on what the problem was and the different procedures that might be necessary for the completeness of the postmortem. Prof Akosa describes them as “very necessary for the work in the morgue”.
Contrary to the situation in other societies like the UK where mortuary men are trained to the post-graduate level, our mortuary men go through what the affable Professor refers to as the “University of Hard Knocks”. They are mostly cleaners in health facilities who metamorphose into mortuary men.
At the La General Hospital Morgue for instance, Madam Margaret Abossey- Tawiah, an environmental officer of the Ministry of Health who is the head of the mortuary explains that the four mortuary men were cleaners who were drafted into the mortuary. She said their training has been limited to short training in how to embalm bodies by an official from the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
Apart from the lack of structured training, Madam Abbosey-Tawiah said remuneration for the mortuary man was nothing to write home about though they receive some motivation allowances from the hospital.
She explained that since none of the four could read or write, she was saddled with all the paper work associated with the job. She was of the view that in future, the authorities should draft into the unit, people who could read and write.
According to Prof Akosa, the idea of a school for training mortuary men with a curriculum in Ghana was mooted by the Ghana Health Service years ago but nothing has happened.
He said a full syllabus was prepared for mortuary attendants’ training by the Human Resource Division of the Ghana Health Service for a diploma course and a degree programme like it is in the UK. As things stand, there is no qualification for mortuary men and also no structure in terms of their career progression.
Mr George Dankyi, Manager of the Korle Bu Hospital’s Mortuary advocates strongly for a school to train mortuary men. He is of the view that such structured formal training would improve health and safety (especially in the area of preventing infections), improve human relations, overall efficiency and recognition and appreciation of the work of the mortuary man.
“If we were doing things right , we would not carry bodies in a taxi in one minute and carry bread for sale in the same taxi the next minute. Handling the dead is something that should be done by people in the field for health reasons” , he explains.
Mr Dankyi thinks that a school for the training of mortuary men should attract Senior High School leavers for training into the field for more effective work.
Even though present salaries for mortuary men are low, Mr Dankyi says a number of people approach him frequently for employment in the mortuary because of the “thank yous” relations offer in a bid to get their bodies well treated.
Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyirah, Director of Human Resource Development at the Ministry of Health recognises the need for some formalised and structured training for mortuary men but said it was not being done at the moment and that it was something that the ministry would have to consider.
He said that such an idea, if implemented, could attract younger people into the profession which seems inundated by the not so young.
For now, mortuary men are not well motivated because they are not well paid and not generally recognised and appreciated for their work by the larger society. Also, they have no proper career progression since most of them come initially as cleaners and undergo very little training, if any at all. It therefore becomes difficult for them to transit to becoming qualified prosectors.
Though the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and the La General Hospital Mortuary and a few others in the capital were the focus of this write-up, there is nothing to suggest that mortuary men in other mortuaries across the country may be faring better.
The bottom line is that the way we have shunned this all-important aspect of our health care leaves much to be desired. If anything at all, it should be at the back of the minds of policy makers and the larger society that the services of mortuary men are one that we will all require sooner or later and the earlier they ensured that we have well- trained and motivated mortuary men in the country to assist pathologists as obtains in most civilised societies, the better it will be for us. We cannot have a holistic, quality health care system if we ignore the mortuary man - everybody's friend at last.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
A group of 10 mourners stood at the gate of the mortuary where they had gone to check whether the body of their beloved “was being kept well”.
They had been waiting for the mortuary man for a while and were getting impatient but could not leave because their mission had not been accomplished. The mourners had learnt that if you do not “see” the mortuary man, the body of your beloved will not get good treatment. So they waited.
When the mortuary man finally emerged, removed his gloves and stretched out his hand to greet them, they pretended that they had not seen his hand and started looking at the trees around. He was used to that behaviour and ignored what normally would be regarded as rude.
Rather the mortuary man assured them that everything was okay. When he invited them to come in and see their beloved for themselves, only two of the mourners gathered the courage to do so! Fear had grabbed the legs of the other eight; They'd rather not see the body.
One vocation in our society which seems so steeped in mystery is the work of the mortuary man. Though very little is known about the work of this special group of people, several stories are told about their mystical powers. Some even claim that they talk to the dead and that in some cases where the souls of the dead refuse to be at rest, chants from the mortuary man calms them down!
The general perception about the mortuary man seems to be borne out of our fear and or reverence for the dead. It is related to the thought that anyone who touches and does things with the dead must not be entertained by the living. With this kind of thinking it is only logical to conclude that any group of persons dealing with the dead on a daily basis must possess supernatural powers in equal measure, if not more.
Mortuary men are, therefore, people we do not like to go too close to; we would rather admire them from a distance. The mere sight of these health workers sends shivers down the spines of many and it is usually an experience most people would rather pray passes over them like the biblical cup in the case of the Christ.
But the world being what it is; death is part of life. It happens that once in a while, whether we like it or not, we come face to face with the mortuary man at the loss of a relation.
It is during these times that the mortuary man, who is always at the fringes of society, calls the shots and throws his weight about in the presence of the rich and powerful. After all, he is performing an important job which few people would dare to do.
Strongman is the name of a popular mortuary man at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital's mortuary in Accra. He has been doing this job since he was 30. At 56 now, his job description has been to remove bodies for post mortem to the theatre and for embalmment, pack bodies into the fridges, pick up bodies from the wards to the morgue and cleaning.
Very well built in stature, Strongman used to be a fisherman but when fishing was not putting adequate food on his table, he left to work as a porter at the then Ghana Food Distribution Corporation . He says his job as a porter was also not too rewarding financially, so when his sister got him the job as a mortuary man, he obliged.
Before he started working in the mortuary, Strongman had heard tales of how such workers use some spiritual powers but for him, “I only do this job with the help of God”. He said that contrary to the notion that mortuary men had to drink a lot of alcohol in order to do the job, he was an occasional drinker and does not drink because of the job.
His family does not treat him differently from other members but “sometimes it is rather some outsiders who shun me”. He likes his job, teaches others to do it by apprenticeship but says the salary is not encouraging at all.
Mr Alex Moffatt who has been doing the job of a prosector at the same mortuary for 22 years is a middle school form four leaver. He was trained on the job to open up bodies for pathologists to do the post mortem. After that he puts the organs back into the bodies and stitches them up.
He also started the job in the morgue as a cleaner, became a mortuary attendant and then a mortuary man before his transfer to the theatre to work as a prosector. Mr Moffatt, who is also a pastor at the Christian Forces Church in Mamprobi is happy with his job because he believes “God wants me to learn something”.
But he is not satisfied with the salary which he puts at about GH ¢300 a month in spite of the risks involved. He talks about occasional cuts from the surgical blade, pricks from the needle during work and susceptibility to diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and cholera. In spite of these, the government pays them no risk allowance. His hope was that the Single Spine Salary Structure would address these concerns, but so far there have been no signs of such redress.
Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, a Pathologist, explains that mortuary men include those category of staff trained as prosectors to open up bodies for post-mortem examination.
They have been trained on the job in the different ways to open the bodies, dependent on what the problem was and the different procedures that might be necessary for the completeness of the postmortem. Prof Akosa describes them as “very necessary for the work in the morgue”.
Contrary to the situation in other societies like the UK where mortuary men are trained to the post-graduate level, our mortuary men go through what the affable Professor refers to as the “University of Hard Knocks”. They are mostly cleaners in health facilities who metamorphose into mortuary men.
At the La General Hospital Morgue for instance, Madam Margaret Abossey- Tawiah, an environmental officer of the Ministry of Health who is the head of the mortuary explains that the four mortuary men were cleaners who were drafted into the mortuary. She said their training has been limited to short training in how to embalm bodies by an official from the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
Apart from the lack of structured training, Madam Abbosey-Tawiah said remuneration for the mortuary man was nothing to write home about though they receive some motivation allowances from the hospital.
She explained that since none of the four could read or write, she was saddled with all the paper work associated with the job. She was of the view that in future, the authorities should draft into the unit, people who could read and write.
According to Prof Akosa, the idea of a school for training mortuary men with a curriculum in Ghana was mooted by the Ghana Health Service years ago but nothing has happened.
He said a full syllabus was prepared for mortuary attendants’ training by the Human Resource Division of the Ghana Health Service for a diploma course and a degree programme like it is in the UK. As things stand, there is no qualification for mortuary men and also no structure in terms of their career progression.
Mr George Dankyi, Manager of the Korle Bu Hospital’s Mortuary advocates strongly for a school to train mortuary men. He is of the view that such structured formal training would improve health and safety (especially in the area of preventing infections), improve human relations, overall efficiency and recognition and appreciation of the work of the mortuary man.
“If we were doing things right , we would not carry bodies in a taxi in one minute and carry bread for sale in the same taxi the next minute. Handling the dead is something that should be done by people in the field for health reasons” , he explains.
Mr Dankyi thinks that a school for the training of mortuary men should attract Senior High School leavers for training into the field for more effective work.
Even though present salaries for mortuary men are low, Mr Dankyi says a number of people approach him frequently for employment in the mortuary because of the “thank yous” relations offer in a bid to get their bodies well treated.
Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyirah, Director of Human Resource Development at the Ministry of Health recognises the need for some formalised and structured training for mortuary men but said it was not being done at the moment and that it was something that the ministry would have to consider.
He said that such an idea, if implemented, could attract younger people into the profession which seems inundated by the not so young.
For now, mortuary men are not well motivated because they are not well paid and not generally recognised and appreciated for their work by the larger society. Also, they have no proper career progression since most of them come initially as cleaners and undergo very little training, if any at all. It therefore becomes difficult for them to transit to becoming qualified prosectors.
Though the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and the La General Hospital Mortuary and a few others in the capital were the focus of this write-up, there is nothing to suggest that mortuary men in other mortuaries across the country may be faring better.
The bottom line is that the way we have shunned this all-important aspect of our health care leaves much to be desired. If anything at all, it should be at the back of the minds of policy makers and the larger society that the services of mortuary men are one that we will all require sooner or later and the earlier they ensured that we have well- trained and motivated mortuary men in the country to assist pathologists as obtains in most civilised societies, the better it will be for us. We cannot have a holistic, quality health care system if we ignore the mortuary man - everybody's friend at last.
Writer’s e-mail: aamakai@hotmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)